Outlaws!
by TheFantasticLadyMax
Summary: A mission goes very wrong for Jason Todd. Koriand'r knows something's happened to her, but can't remember what. And Roy Harper has lost an arm, a daughter, and the only friend he had left. They're done playing by the rules. (Fix-It Fic that attempts to blend the New 52 with pre-Flashpoint and better streamline both continuities.)
1. Prelude

The night was neon and electric inside the little Floridian nightclub. Music pulsated through the air as tangibly as one of the dancers, a ghost made of soundwaves, and the smells of sweat and alcohol and a hundred different perfumes.

The Costa Rican man seated at the bar was like a ghost as well - present, yet not. He sipped an iced tea and tapped his fingers in time with the music, but was otherwise oblivious to the party. He could've been the only one there, for all he seemed to care about his surroundings.

"Hey." A Chinese man about the same age as the bar's - up until that moment - sole patron sat down to the man's left. The first man acknowledged the newcomer's greeting with a curt nod, but said nothing and returned to his drink.

"You look like you've had a rough day," the newcomer observed, undeterred. "Can I buy you a drink?"

The first man was equally undeterred in his mission to become a human cinderblock. "I don't drink alcohol."

"I'm not judging!" the newcomer replied, actually looking impressed. He flagged down the bartender. "Can we get a round of whatever he's having? Thanks!"

The bartender nodded and walked off.

"Hope you like iced tea," Cinderblock said drily, taking a long sip of his.

"It's not my favorite, but I don't hate it." The newcomer remained vigilantly cheerful. "Can I ask why someone would wanna come to a nightclub just to ignore everyone and drink tea, though?"

"No."

A pause.

Then, "I like the atmosphere. It's loud, but it's a controlled sort of chaos. Helps me relax."

The second man nodded. "Actually, that makes sense. I never thought of it that way, but there's something to be said about the, uh… the –" he snapped his fingers, looking for the right word, "energy. For sure."

The first man made a "well-there-you-go" gesture, then drained his glass.

"What has you so interested in some rando at the bar?" he asked. "You seem like one of those obnoxious, life-of-the-party types."

The second man dropped his voice conspiratorially as the bartender set his order down in front of him. "I'm the party police. It's my sworn duty to make sure everyone's having fun."

Cinderblock actually cracked a smile at this. Party Police flicked the straw of his iced tea playfully before sliding it over.

"Well, here's to a job well done," Cinderblock said, holding up his drink. Party Police obligingly clinked glasses, and they both took a sip in unison.

"Does this mean I've won you over?" Party Police asked.

Cinderblock snorted into his drink. "I'd never admit it, but yeah."

"Awesome! I'd hate to have to arrest you."

"Me too. Not real big on handcuffs."

Party Police laughed. "Do I want to know?"

"Doesn't matter whether you want to know or not, because I'll never admit anything."

He paused. Frowned. Gripped the edge of the bar for support.

"Okay, I'll admit one thing. You spiked my drink without me noticing."

Party Police's smile grew chilly, like a snake's before it strikes. "Very observant, Jason Todd."

"Honestly, I was… looking for an opportunity… to do the same thing to you. Chien Xi Han, right?"

"Obviously. And my sister can't wait to meet you."

Jason looked around. The whirling bodies and flashing colors on the dancefloor made him feel sick. The bartender winked at him, his face holding the same cold smile Han was wearing.

Han slipped an arm around Jason.

"Let's get you some air, buddy," he announced loudly, for the benefit of anyone who might care – which happened to be no one. "You're not looking so good."

He tossed some cash on the bar, then dragged Jason out of the club and into the night.

His consciousness was black and light; flashing, like headlights passing on the highway. One second, Jason was aware of being sandwiched between two grunts in the back of a car, then everything was gone – like being asleep but worse.

Even as hazy as everything else was, the smell of briny ocean and gasoline grew stronger. Jason was vaguely aware of the car door opening, then he was hauled out of the vehicle. The world swayed and bounced, and then Jason was falling, landing hard on a sheet of plastic, surrounded by the sounds of lapping waves and clinking chains.

"I really hoped you would be more of a challenge to kill," a woman's voice said. She floated into view, a swirl of white hair, brown eyes, and tan skin; Chien Na Wei, first class drug lord and Han's big, bad sister.

"All this chatter about the notorious Red Hood," she continued. "Bane of traffickers everywhere! Nightmare of the underworld! But look at you!" She actually seemed angry. "You fell so easy! Like an amateur!" With a look of pure disgust, she kicked Jason in the side, then pulled a gun from her belt. "Killing you will barely be satisfying."

"S'funny," Jason slurred, staring down the barrel of the gun, "I was thinking the same thing."

"What a shame that regret is worthless."

Jason sighed. "You must be misunderstanding me. I _mean_ , I was thinking the same thing _about you._ "

Wei's eyebrows knit together. "Wh-?"

Jason kicked her in the knee, cutting off her exclamation, flipped to a standing position, then kicked off the sole of his shoe, revealing a concealed detonator.

Wei stared for a moment, then closed her eyes. "Oh fuck."

The explosion ripped the yacht apart, throwing twisted metal hundreds of feet into the air in all directions.

As Jason sank, he felt a tugging at his ankles that hastened him along. He wasn't too surprised to look down and see cinderblocks shackled to his legs. After all, the cartel couldn't exactly have his body resurfacing.

He allowed his eyes to drift closed as the bubbles of air that escaped his lungs grew less and less frequent. Around his head, black hair dye floated away from the white streak in his hair like a smoky halo.

 _Fucking shit sand, what the fuck, this better not be Heaven or I'm gonna be having words with somebody…_

Jason coughed violently and sat up, pain stabbing through his chest and sunlight burning his eyes. He winced in spite of himself. Soft hands gripped his shoulders and gently shoved him back to a lying position.

"Careful, little bird. I broke a few of your ribs while performing CPR," a soft voice said.

"Can you at least turn off the fucking… uh… sun?" Jason rasped between coughs.

The voice laughed. She was becoming more distinct now, more of a pile of shifting shapes than a blob. She was still, however, extremely orange.

"Do I know you from somewhere?" Jason asked, familiarity dawning on him.

"Perhaps another life, little bird."

Jason shook his head, blinking rapidly, forcing himself to see his savior clearly. Princess Koriand'r - or Starfire of the Teen Titans, as he'd known her - sat beside him in the sand in all her sunshiney glory: her golden skin, glowing green eyes, and massive red curls exactly as he remembered from when he was a kid.

Jason gaped, then leaned over and vomited a lungful of seawater onto the beach. Koriand'r patted his back forcefully, helping to dislodge the offending liquid.

 _Tamaranean firepower is the sexiest thing I've ever seen_ , Jason thought, sighting in a solar cannon that was the size of his torso, yet weighed about as much as a loaf of bread. Its lilac metal caught the sun at a hundred different angles, giving the weapon an almost heavenly glow. All that was missing was the angelic choir singing in the background.

Jason weighed the pros and cons of firing off a practice shot. His final list looked something like,

"Pros:

\- Important to be familiar with unfamiliar weaponry

\- New learning experiences should (almost) always be taken advantage of

\- I really, really want to fire this gun

Cons:

\- Trees could end up on fire

\- Boats could end up on fire or completely obliterated

\- This stupid, tiny island has no good places to construct even a normal shooting range"

Jason was saved from his deliberation by Koriand'r zooming out the door of the abandoned battleship that was serving as her home, grabbing him by the arm, and practically shouting "You need to see this!" in his ear while half dragging him down the beach.

"I didn't even do anything yet!" Jason protested as the gun fell from his grasp and plopped sadly onto the sand.

"Hopefully, you are about to do something!" Koriand'r replied. She sounded almost ominous. Ominous or scared.

Jason followed the princess through the halls, stumbling to keep up, until Koriand'r stopped in front of the computer console in her common area.

"I have diligently read the news every morning," she explained, "hoping to remember why I isolated myself, and while I have not yet found the answer, I _have_ found something important enough to return for."

Without another word, she pointed at the screen.

A news article was splashed across the screen, complete with a photograph of the article's bruised, bloody subject.

"AMERICAN TO BE PUT TO DEATH IN QURAC" the headline read. The face in the photograph was familiar, even under the layers of grime and grief that sought to disguise it.

"Is that _Roy Harper_?" Jason asked, incredulous. Roy had always seemed like someone who could go through Hell and come out laughing about it, but while the man in the photograph smirked and held up a peace sign, a trained eye could see how very forced it was.

Koriand'r nodded sadly. "Lately, he has fallen quite far from grace."

"And I suppose you'd like to bring him back to the light – so to speak?"

" _Like_ to?" Koriand'r almost sounded offended. "He is my friend! There is _nothing_ I would not do to save his life."

Jason exhaled slowly. "Okay. Then I'm going to need a few things."

Roy wondered idly if there would be a point in trying to keep track of the days he spent in captivity.

 _A maximum of two tally marks would look pretty pathetic_ , he thought, brushing the stone with his good hand. _Would it be in poor taste to admit I'm bored?_

He started scratching a simple face into the wall instead. Two eyes, an oblong nose, and the top of a bald head soon appeared to be peeking over a wall, along with two hands, which clutched the top of the wall on either side of the face.

The door to his cell clanged open. Roy jumped, turning away from his drawing. A flash of phantom pain shot through what was left of his right arm, causing him to bite his lip to suppress a groan.

"I brought your last meal, 'superhero,'" a guard sneered, dropping a tray on the floor. "And a visitor."

A pale, nervous-looking priest with salt-and-pepper hair peered over the guard's shoulder.

"Oh god," Roy groaned, banging his head against the wall.

"Af-fraid not," the priest stuttered, "I only w-work for Him."

The guard rolled his eyes and stalked out of the cell, slamming the door behind him as he warned, "Five minutes!"

"I-I'm Father Hidalgo," the priest stuttered with a tentative smile.

"And I'm not interested," Roy replied, bending to grab the bowl of whatever-it-was he'd been served, then straightening up. He looked at the bowl. The bowl looked back. He set it back on the floor.

"Are you sure you don't want to listen to what I have to say?"

Roy took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly before replying. "Look, I know you mean well, but I was raised Navajo, and I intend to die that way."

He returned to scratching at the wall.

"Something tells me that's not where your apprehensions lie."

Roy took another pointed breath.

"You want honesty? Fine. Here's how I see the big picture: I'm gonna finish writing 'Kilroy Was Here' on this wall, you're gonna wander back to whatever do-gooder group sent you, and then that delightful prison guard you just met is going to take me outside and blow my brains out. After that, I _literally_ do not care what happens. I just want the garbage fire that is my life to be over with, whether I end up in Hell or not. In fact, I probably deserve to go to Hell! So thanks for your concern, but it's wasted on me."

"Hmm," Father Hidalgo mused behind him. "Interesting take. Give me a moment to consult my book, would you?"

"Be my guest," Roy replied with a dry laugh.

 _Click_.

Now there was a sound Roy hadn't expected to hear. Slowly, he turned to see Father Hidalgo standing there, seeming a bit taller than he had been, holding an open Bible with a massive hole in the pages in one hand and a gun in the other.

"You seem rather intent on dying, but would you mind giving me one more chance to change your mind?"

"Depends on who's _really_ asking," Roy replied apprehensively.

Father Hidalgo tucked the gun into the waist of his pants, set the Bible reverently on the floor, then peeled off his face. Or, rather, the latex mask Roy had thought was his face. The mask tumbled to the floor, followed by the gray wig that completed the disguise.

Roy groaned upon seeing the identity of his rescuer. There was only one person he knew of who was tacky enough to wear a mask _under_ another mask.

"I'm screwed."

"That's nice," Jason Todd replied, drawing the gun. "Get behind me."

"Whoa! That seems a little forward. You could at least buy me dinner first."

"If I wasn't supposed to bring you back in one piece, I would shoot you right now."

Roy furrowed his eyebrow. "Who sent you? And since when do you do contract work?"

Roy's question went unanswered when the door was ungraciously thrown open.

"Time is up, superhero!" The guard jeered, waltzing into the cell. Then, he saw Jason and froze, staring. Jason cut him down with a single bullet, then grabbed the man's gun and slung it over his shoulder.

"You coming, or am I eating dinner by myself?"

Wordlessly, Roy darted after Jason - the little, unfinished Kilroy seeming to smile after him.

"Who sent you?" Roy asked, repeating his earlier question. "Why is the Red Hood in Qurac, chasing down former superheroes?"

"Is this really the time for that?" Jason asked pointedly.

Bullets flew through the air so thickly that some of them had to be colliding with each other. Jason was driving a stolen Jeep in zigzags so wide he was barely gaining any ground. Roy was attempting to return fire with Jason's gun, but one man against a battalion has fairly decent odds against him.

"We're definitely going to need bigger guns," Roy allowed, ducking a hail of bullets.

"You just said 'we' as if you trust me," Jason replied with a smirk.

Roy barely hesitated before pressing the gun to Jason's temple.

"Who. Sent. You?"

A ball of angry fire shot across the sky just then, small bursts of it breaking off and blazing down to Earth, stirring up horrified screaming. As though a switch had been flipped, the gunfire stopped.

"That would be the big guns, who sent me," Jason replied, his smirk now wider than ever.

With a _THUD_ , the fireball landed on the hood of the car and dimmed. Jason kept on driving without even the smallest flinch. Starfire stood proudly in front of the two young men in a cloud of smoke, dust, and ash. Eyes blazing, skin glowing, and hair like a volcanic eruption, she had rarely looked so terrifying. Roy had never been so happy to see her.

"Roy, I believe you know your benefactor? Princess Koriand'r of Tamaran?" Jason said by way of an introduction.

"Good afternoon, Roy!" The princess said with a grin.

Roy stared. He lowered the gun. He felt his eyes sting, and found himself choking on the next breath he took. He was… safe? The rest of the world hadn't given up on him?

"And if it'll put your mind at ease, she's not paying me," Jason added, then paused. "But one of you owes me a new Bible."

"We can discuss this later," Kori interjected. "Such as, when we aren't in a warzone."

"Take it away, _princesa_ ," Jason replied. He turned to Roy. "You might want to hold on."

Gracefully, Kori spread her arms wide and allowed herself to fall back in a swan dive that seemed unnecessarily dramatic but looked cool, landed with a backwards somersault, and held out her hands, grabbing the front of the vehicle as it rolled toward her and lifting it off the ground. Jason and Roy were both thrown back and forth like balls of paper in a room full of high school students, especially once Kori actually took off into the sky, leaving the desolate prison in her fiery wake.

"You doing okay?" Jason shouted over the wind that howled by.

Roy shrugged with as much nonchalance as he could. "I've been through worse!"

"Obviously! That's not what I asked!"

 _Asshole!_

"I'm not going to throw up on you, if that's what you're worried about, shortpants!"

Jason smirked. "That's all I needed to hear! Minus the 'shortpants' bit."

"You're right! That's Dick's nickname! How 'bout we workshop some new ones, Dead Robin?"

Jason's voice dropped so low it was hard to hear. "Careful."

Roy felt a shiver he didn't think came from the wind. "Sorry. I'm not used to the idea of you not being antagonistic."

Jason's nostrils flared, but all he said was, "Fair enough."

As the landscape flew by, the two men regarded each other, on equal ground for the first time. Well, nearly.

"Would you take that stupid mask off?" Roy asked. "I already know what your face looks like!"

Jason raised an eyebrow, then reached up and peeled away the crimson domino mask, letting the wind carry it off to parts unknown. His eyes were so strange. They'd always been odd – deep brown with a blue blotch in each that was caused by heterochromia – but now his pupils were also ringed by a poisonous green. Must've been a resurrection thing. But if Oliver's eyes had ever been like that, Roy hadn't noticed.

"Happy?" Jason asked, his freckle-dusted nose scrunching. Suddenly, he seemed more like the kid he used to be.

"Rarely," Roy replied, voice dry. He was remembering better times, and the memories lashed at him with venom that stung and laughed and threatened to crush him with guilt.

 _Oh god I wish I'd just died._

A mile above Earth, Jason sat in contemplative silence, staring at the pages of the paperback in front of him without really seeing the words on the page. Whatever. He'd probably read _The Princess Bride_ ten times already. There were more important things to think about.

He was even with Kori, they'd agreed on that. And for the first time in all the time he'd known her, Kori almost seemed as though she'd rather be left alone. She, however, had made it her mission to help Roy get back on his feet.

Roy, however, seemed almost intent on staying down. He'd hardly gotten out of bed after landing on Kori's island, waking up screaming every time he fell asleep, barely eating, and, at one point, giving Jason a random, yet probably deserved, verbal beatdown about the time he'd kidnapped Mia Dearden.

Was it running away, Jason wondered, if there were no obligation for him to stay? Kori didn't need him, Roy didn't want him, and he could always –

"That page must be fascinating! You've been staring at it for the last half hour!" a voice said, cutting through his thoughts.

"Huh?" Jason looked up. A flight attendant was watching him with a bemused expression on her face. She had earthy, brown skin and short, amber hair. Her hazel eyes sparkled, almost as if she was trying not to laugh. She seemed sweet enough.

"I was going to ask you if you wanted anything to drink," she replied, "but I didn't want to interrupt you in the middle of something important. But it's been almost thirty minutes since you last flipped a page."

"Oh, you know how it is," Jason replied, a little embarrassed, "every word's a treasure that deserves close contemplation."

The flight attendant, whose nametag read "Isabel," raised an eyebrow. "Uh huh. Do you want something to drink?"

Did he?

"Can I get a ginger ale?" Jason asked.

"No problem!" Isabel replied cheerfully. "Enjoy your contemplating!"

 _Dumbass_ , Jason berated himself. He flipped to the next page and drew himself into the world of intrigue, romance, and adventure. Isabel gave him an approving smile when she returned with his drink.

As the plane touched down in Osaka, Japan, Jason stuffed the handful of unused cocktail napkins that came with his drink into a pocket of his blazer, tucked his book into the messenger bag that comprised the entirety of his luggage, and slung the bag over his shoulder. He was uncomfortable being unarmed, but everything he needed was at his safehouse. If he ran into trouble on the way, he'd just have to improvise.

Getting a cab downtown was easy. Better yet, the driver felt no need to engage in small talk, just asked Jason for the address and fare. The ride downtown was peaceful.

After the ride was not, however. The sun was just beginning to set, sending businesspeople home and bringing partygoers out to replace them. Jason wove his way through chattering, brightly dressed clusters of people, his eyes darting in every direction, hair standing on end, fists clenched, daring the night to throw anything at him. Crowds were bad. Crowds meant collateral damage if anything went wrong. And things always went wrong.

He reached his safehouse without incident.

Jason pulled the cord his key was hanging on out from under his shirt, where he had been wearing it for safekeeping next to the gold cross he never took off, and shimmied it into the lock. Something flickered behind one of the windows, and Jason felt like banging his head against the door. He was so sure he'd been careful. Despite the rising tide of "about to beat someone's ass" within him, he avoided taking out his frustrations on the innocent slab of wood and opened it normally.

Half a dozen guns cocked as he flipped the light on. Chien Na Wei and a handful of henchmen stood in the middle of his kitchenette, looking steamed, but otherwise amazing for someone who Jason distinctly remembered blowing up. Jason closed the door behind him.

"Jason Todd." Wei's voice was as icy as her snow-white hair. "You killed my baby brother."

Jason raised his hands in a sarcastic placating gesture.

"I'm sorry," he said, "honestly. I meant to kill you too."

"It's a good thing I plan better than you," Wei replied with the slightest sneer. Her henchmen were all aiming steadily at his chest, a blank-faced firing squad just for him.

"C'mon, you wouldn't shoot an unarmed man, would you?" Jason asked, grinning at his impromptu houseguests.

Wei raised an eyebrow. "Wouldn't I?"

Jason pretended to consider that. "Okay, fair enough."

He ducked and danced around the first round of bullets, reached into a planter box, pulled out a gun of his own, and returned fire. Two of the assassins dropped immediately, followed by a third. Jason ran straight toward the hail of bullets, leapt onto a countertop, and flipped onto a fourth, picked off a fifth, then shoved the fourth into the sixth and shot them both.

Wei sighed, as if she'd been expecting a similar result.

"What was that about planning better than me?" Jason asked, straightening up but pointing his gun at Wei.

"Clearly," she replied, "not everyone has what it takes to kill a cockroach."

She pulled her own gun from her holster, but Jason shot it out of her hand before she could do anything with it, then shot her in the abdomen and shoulder for good measure. She fell to the floor with a look on her face that was almost enough to make gravity itself fear her retribution.

"Yup," Jason agreed, "guess not."

"You'd better kill me, you little bitch," she hissed. "Or I'll make sure you suffer next time I find you."

Jason stepped gingerly over the fallen bodies of Wei's hit squad and crouched down beside her. "From one cockroach to another? You seem to be the only one suffering from our meetings. Get over it."

With that, he turned and walked away. It was a cocky move, but no bullets came after him, and he disappeared into the bedroom. He was relieved to find his gear untouched and right where he'd left it, behind a drop panel in the closet. He cleaned everything out of the hidden cavity – no way he was coming back now – and appraised it. Everything was still there:

\- One of Jason's signature red helmets

\- A pair of reinforced, black tactical pants

\- A red, armored shirt

\- A black leather jacket with red accents and a couple of bullet holes

\- Gloves and boots that would've been unassuming, if they hadn't been in with everything else

\- A red gun belt with a hip holster on either side

\- The two guns the holsters had been made for

\- And enough .45 caliber ammo to sink a none-too-determined canoe.

Jason grinned. The Red Hood was about to make a comeback.

Just for the hell of it, he climbed out the window after collecting his gear. He wouldn't be returning to the compromised safehouse again, so it was really his only chance.

 **Someday, I'll put extensive author's notes up on .com, but here are the basics:**  
 **\- If you try and order hot tea at a bar, no one knows what to make of you.**  
 **\- Han is an OC, but Chien Na Wei (nicknamed "China White" by Oliver Queen) is from Green Arrow: Year One and she will be back.**  
 **\- I wrote the second scene after watching an episode of iZombie. I liked it enough to keep it.**  
 **\- CPR is nothing like it looks in the movies.**  
 **\- "Kilroy was here" is a WWII U.S. Army calling card, of sorts; a way troops would tell later battalions "Hey! We were here!" For some reason it's making a comeback and my hometown is plastered with Kilroys.**  
 **\- Kori is stronk**  
 **\- Why pick one eye color when heterochromia exists?**  
 **\- Jason's costume sucks, I'm redesigning it.**  
 **\- I have no consistent updating schedule, but just assume that I want me to publish the next chapter more than you do.**


	2. Ice, Ice, Kori

**This chapter contains heavy themes of depression/suicidal ideation. Please proceed responsibly.**

Oliver Queen stood among the wreckage of what once had been a prison. Secretly, he was relieved that the bird lady had insisted on handling interrogations; in his present state, Ollie was pretty sure he would've killed somebody.

Boots crunched on gravel, and Ollie spun around, bow at the ready, a – non-lethal – arrow nocked. However, as soon as he saw it was only Dinah, he lowered the weapon. Her facial expression gave nothing away, but his stomach clenched all the same. No news was good news.

"He's gone," she said, crossing her arms and sighing.

If she had stabbed him with an icicle, Ollie wouldn't've felt as cold. He needed to punch something.

"No," he growled. "No!"

He kicked the nearest chunk of rubble as hard as he could. This was his fault. If he had only listened to the kid, been there for him, maybe now he wouldn't be –

Dinah grabbed his arms.

"Ollie, listen to me. He's _literally_ gone. He escaped."

Ollie looked up.

"What?"

There was only truth in Dinah's eyes.

"He _was_ due to be executed," she explained, "but apparently 'some fucking priest and a woman made of fire' pulled him out before they could. Roy's alive, Oliver!"

Ollie collapsed into Dinah's arms, ready to cry from sheer relief.

"Don't scare me like that, Pretty Bird!" he said.

* * *

Miles above the Earth, everything seemed so small, so pointless. Kori floated serenely, watching the sun climb over the horizon to fill her with its light, its warmth, and its strength. She remembered when she used to do that with Donna. It wouldn't be so hard, she thought, to return to her old life. Her old friends, they had to be missing her, right?

Despite the light filling her, Kori felt ice forming in her stomach. What if they were the reason she had left? She had adored them for as long as she'd lived on Earth, but as far as Kori was able to remember, their once unshakable bond had begun to fracture near the end.

Suddenly, Kori remembered: she had someone _sharing_ her _home_ who would surely have some sort of answers! She dove toward the surface of her adopted planet, the anticipation crackling along her skin just as tangible as the Sun's energy.

When she landed, she had to resist the urge to blow the door off its hinges and just keep flying until she found Roy. Instead, she forced herself to maintain enough composure to open the door and carefully shut it before blasting off toward the room Roy was staying in.

She knocked lightly on his door, then took a deep breath.

 _He's been through a lot,_ she reminded herself. _Be gentle - don't scare him._

Carefully, she opened the door. The room was dark, unoccupied. The blankets on Roy's bed were a tangled heap, the clothes on the floor a smaller heap, but there was no sign of the man himself.

 _Panic!_ Kori's instincts screamed.

Instead, she turned from the room and hurried along the corridor, trying to think of where a man with no clothes on would go on a repurposed naval vessel.

The showers were also empty, but the room was warm, and puddles of water glistened on the floor.

 _Where would a man with no clothes on go on a repurposed naval vessel_ after _he has already showered?_ Kori wondered.

The third try proved to be the charm. Kori found Roy in the galley, water from his coppery hair dripping onto the towel wrapped around his waist and into the bowl of cereal he'd poured himself. She tried not to stare at the scarred, twisted flesh where his right arm had once been.

"You're out of milk," he said without looking up, his voice emotionless. He poked the contents of the bowl as if doing so enough would conjure milk.

"Good to know," Kori replied, not sure how to handle the situation.

"I need to get out of here, or I'm going to lose my shit."

Kori nodded, biting her lip. "I'm glad you're feeling better, at least."

Roy's head jerked up, finally making eye contact with Kori. Dark circles had blossomed under his eyes, which were bloodshot and darkened by a whirlwind of emotions.

"Better?" Roy croaked, his voice raw. "Kori, Joey's dead. And it's my fault."

* * *

Buying a boat had been an excellent decision. Sure, it smelled like every single fish the previous owner had caught on it, but Jason liked the freedom it gave him. The wind whistled through his hair, tossing it back from his forehead. That was something you couldn't get in an airplane. That, and freedom from cute but nosy flight attendants.

He'd found the note Isabel had left on one of the napkins for him – her phone number, preceded by _"I love_ The Princess Bride _, call me if you ever want someone to 'contemplate' it with ~ Isabel Ardila_ " – and, for whatever reason, decided to keep it. He wasn't even sure he liked women in a… romantic sort of way, and he DEFINITELY wasn't about to endanger a civilian by developing feelings for her, but Isabel had international data and great taste in literature. Why not at least hold on to the possibility of giving it a go?

Right now, however, there were bad guys to track down. Nasty, resilient, elusive-as-shit bad guys. And he finally had a lead on one.

The lead wasn't much, just that she was hiding out in Bar Harbor, Maine and had been for a while. From that, Jason figured she wasn't disguising herself as a tourist, and in a town as small as Bar Harbor, she was sure to stick out.

Life was pretty damn good.

* * *

"What do you mean, Joey is dead?"

The look of horrified confusion on Kori's face could've physically wounded him. Already, Roy felt as though a hand was squeezing his heart, digging at him with steel claws, trying to take any last shred of hope he still held onto. She would hate him.

Still, he owed her an explanation.

"When Lian was killed, my entire life went to shit," Roy began. "I started doing everything I could to fuck myself up to the point where I couldn't feel the pain anymore. Then Deathstroke put together this squad of equally damaged assholes, I guess to run interference or whatever, while he went on some wild scavenger hunt that would help him save his son. I jumped on board, initially because Jade wanted my help killing the old bastard, but he knew just how to play each and every one of us. I was so out of it that I barely remember most of it, but in the end he had Doctor Sivana build this, this fucking, _deus-ex-machina_ machine and it brought Joey back from the stairway to Jewish heaven or whatever, but Joey was pissed and he didn't want anything to do with it, and the team splintered. This girl on the team, Carla or Cinder or whatever you want to call her, died destroying the machine. Slade had offered to use the machine to resurrect her dead brothers. She basically told him to piss off. Oh, and, _and_ get this: he called his little task force the 'Titans,' so he could like, tarnish the reputations of the real Titans or whatever.

"I took charge of the team after he admitted that, but Joey was the only one who stayed. We'd both been through so much, we decided our main objective should be trying to un-fuck each other and ourselves. We should've stuck with that. Maybe we could've, I dunno, burned our costumes and raised sheep or something, but of _course_ we didn't because there's _always_ something more important, always people who need help, and how can you say no?

"So we went to Khandaq, because they were in deep shit and we thought we could help. Oh god, Kori," Roy's voice broke, "I messed up so bad."

Koriand'r closed the gap between the two of them and firmly grabbed Roy's shoulders.

"Look at me," she commanded, and he raised his eyes to meet hers.

"Whatever you may have done, it does not make you any less worth saving. The fact that you feel remorse is proof that you are not a monster."

Roy shook his head. "You have no idea how wrong you are. Look, I'll explain _exactly_ what I did, just as long as I can get something stronger than," he shoved his bowl away from him in disgust, "milkless sugar pellets."

Kori shook her head in resignation. "Fine. What do you have in mind?"

* * *

Jason put special care into looking "touristy." He'd purposely worn a fleece jacket that was too light for the chilly, coastal winter, a haphazardly wrapped scarf, an obnoxiously bright yellow hat that didn't match the mustard color of the scarf at all, touchscreen-compatible gloves, and cheap sunglasses. Of course, he also had a gun tucked into his waistband, another gun concealed in a zippered pocket of his messenger bag, his flame-shaped dagger strapped to his ankle, and a switchblade in his pocket, which was less touristy. Or at least it was in some parts of the country.

The wind blasted him like a reverse dragon (referring, in this case, to a large, lizard-like creature that breathes ice and not, say, a small, lizard-like creature that eats fire,) but Jason hunched his shoulders against it and shuffled along the street until he found a coffee shop that advertised free WiFi. He wrestled against the dragon breath to get the door open, finally having to fling it open with a dramatic flourish in order to make an opening large enough to accommodate him.

Fewer heads turned than he'd expected, which he was thankful for, but it was still embarrassing. He kept his head down as he approached the counter and made no move to remove his sunglasses.

"What can I get for ya?" the t-shirt clad barista asked with a smile, the cold weather doing nothing to chip his chipper demeanor.

"Something hot, that's for sure," Jason replied as he looked at the menu. That was how touristy small talk worked, right?

Apparently, it was, because the barista laughed. "You're not from around here, are you?"

"Nah," Jason said, a lie already forming, "I'm a travel blogger. I want to see the world, but SoCal weather's done a shit job of preparing me for it."

Building this fake hipster persona was almost too easy.

The barista laughed again. "Well, no rush! Welcome to this corner of the world!"

Jason returned the smile. "Thanks!"

He ordered something simple, then stuffed himself into a quiet corner where he could set up his laptop. As soon as he connected to the internet, he pulled up every local news site he could find and began digging, searching for signs of the untitled order.

On their own, the signs weren't anything too out of the ordinary, but after about seventeen articles, a pattern began to emerge.

In November, there was an uncharacteristic Black Friday disaster, in which three cars were totaled in an intersection, leaving one driver dead and the other two severely injured.

In October, a house burned down during a Halloween party that appeared to the local sheriff to have "spiraled out of control." According to the report, the host and some of the guests had been trapped inside.

September didn't have anything too extraordinary, save for a (severely intoxicated) woman breaking her leg at an Oktoberfest celebration after she fell off the table she'd been dancing on.

In August, nearly half the brothers in a college fraternity died of alcohol poisoning after a back to school kegger.

The week of July 4th was one mess after another.

June was peppered with accidents at end-of-the-school-year parties. The number of drownings alone was staggering.

The beginning of the tourist season in May wasn't much better.

It went on and on. Sometimes, the scale of the tragedy was huge - at least in terms of a small town. Other times it was as small as the man who had a heart attack on top of his wife on Valentine's Day. But they all had common factors: they happened on or around holidays or other times of celebration, the people killed or injured were in the center of things, and the people usually could've been described as having been happy right up until the moment of their death.

Jason heard an "excuse me" suddenly, right by his elbow, and his thoughts shattered, the pieces running for the hills. He looked up. The barista was standing in front of him, looking unamused.

"Bennett, right?" he asked, addressing Jason by the fake name he'd provided. "I've been trying to tell you your coffee's ready for the last ten minutes."

"Sorry." Jason hurriedly shoved the laptop away from him and accepted the beverage. "Your local lore is really interesting."

He handed the barista a tip that was twice what he'd paid for the drink itself.

"Have fun!" the barista said half-sarcastically before walking away.

"It'll be something," Jason muttered, pulling the computer back toward himself.

* * *

Roy knocked back his glass of tequila and downed it as though his life depended on it. Koriand'r watched him patiently, taking occasional sips of her own cherry soda as she did so. She didn't want to admit it, but he scared her. She'd never seen someone so determined to destroy themselves without actually attempting suicide.

She jumped when Roy slammed the empty glass down on the table.

"Okay," he said, voice low so only Kori could hear, "enough fucking around. I think I'm technically a war criminal."

With a deep breath, he launched into his story.

"When we were in Khandaq, trying to push the invading Quraci forces out, Joey and I met up with these ex-U.S. military freedom fighters who basically had the same idea we did. We agreed to team up, and suddenly, it started to make a difference when we hit back against Qurac. Queen Isis even looked the other way, despite having banned outsiders from Khandaq - in no uncertain terms. I was finally doing the right thing again. Or, I thought I was.

"Then the guys we teamed up with started to get more violent. Joey was starting to have second thoughts about the alliance, but we were still doing so much good. I didn't want to can the whole thing just because of a few indiscretions. We kept going. Then, there was the village.

"We got intel that there was a small village on the Qurac side of the border harboring some of the insurgents. When we got there, we didn't find anything but scared civilians. The ex-military guys bombed it anyway. Joey died trying to stop them. He took one of their guys with him, but it didn't make a difference. He was right. And dozens of innocent people died because I wouldn't listen to him."

Roy smacked the table in frustration, drawing a few glances from other patrons.

"It should've been me, Kori! Why wasn't it me? I tried to kill them and myself after what they did. I took one of their IED's, rigged it to a timer, and set it to go off. But the Quraci military grabbed me right before the blast. I should've died in their prison. I don't deserve your compassion. Just leave me here. Please. I'm beyond saving."

Kori felt as though she'd been stabbed by shards of ice. She grabbed Roy's hand in both of hers and stared directly into his eyes, her own eyes blazing.

"Listen to me," she said. "You are not beyond saving. Joseph and the others are adults. They made their own decisions. You may have influenced him, but the decision Joey made to stay was ultimately his. I hate to say it, but those villagers would have died whether you and Joey had been there or not. Had you not been there, you would not have stopped the people who did it at all."

"But Joey would still be here." With that, Roy wrenched his hand out of Kori's, stood up, and walked out of the bar.

For a moment, Kori sat in silence, trying to process. Then, she tossed ten dollars on the table and followed Roy into the cold. Family didn't give up on family.

* * *

"Who did you say you were with again?" a very skeptical sheriff's deputy asked, one eyebrow raised quizzically, as Jason flipped through coroner's reports.

"Checkmate, ma'am," Jason replied without looking up. He'd affected a flawless Georgia accent since leaving the coffee shop and cleaned up his looks to where he could pass for a federal agent. "The DEO fielded the investigation to us, and I have no idea why. It's some bullshit if you ask me. But of course, _nobody ever does_."

He closed another file and set it aside. "It certainly hasn't been a waste of time, though. Were you aware that someone turns up dead and inexplicably missing at least one vital organ at least once a month, according to these reports?"

"Really?" The deputy's face scrunched in confusion, and she moved around the desk to read over Jason's shoulder. "Let me see that."

"It's all right here, ma'am," Jason said, picking up the report he'd just set down and pointing to a specific line.

"How strange," the deputy said, frowning at the page.

Jason's spine tingled, then pain blossomed outward from his lower back. The deputy grabbed him by the shoulder and lifted him out of the chair, then shoved him against a wall.

"I'll make sure nobody finds _your_ body, then," she said. "Sure sucks that you were 'assigned this case,' doesn't it, 'Agent Darcy?' Tell me, who are you really? I'll find out one way or another, but I want to hear it from you."

Jason could feel her hand ripping through his lower back, probing around inside.

"Ducra sent me," he ground out.

"Ducra?" the deputy asked, amused. "Big sister always was the most in touch with humanity. She'd be so upset if she were alive to hear that you failed."

He wasn't sure if it was shock or the deputy's hand literally squeezing his heart, but Jason was fairly certain that the organ had turned to ice.

"Ducra's dead?" he managed to say. His body was starting to shut down.

"Aww, little puppy," the deputy said, her voice a mockery of soothing, "of course she is. She was weak, and her demise inevitable. Just like those who serve her. You aren't the first of her human paladins to die for a cause she knew was futile, and you won't be the last. Close your eyes now. You'll see her soon."

Jason grit his teeth, squeezing his eyes shut and bracing himself against the wall. What was about to happen was _really_ going to hurt.

"Lady," he said, breathing heavily, "you talk like a Serpents & Spells big bad."

He shoved himself off the wall, toppling himself and the deputy, breaking her hold on him. As he rolled out of her reach, he felt as though his spinal cord had vomited.

He whipped his gun out of his waistband and fired three shots at the deputy. One of them hit its mark, but the deputy barely moved, even as black goo began to ooze from the wound in her sternum. Jason considered himself lucky to even have had that much of an effect on her.

"Copper-plated bullets aren't going to be enough, you know," she hissed, advancing like a tiger that had just seen a tasty-looking wildlife photographer.

"Good thing your sister left us 'human paladins' a few gifts, then, huh?" Jason replied, spreading his arms wide even as he backed away.

A _dpa'dam_ sword stirred from somewhere inside of him and materialized in his hand. The deputy's eyes widened slightly at the sight.

"Tricky, tricky," she said, smiling slightly. "I suppose the blade was forged out of copper."

"Yup." Jason nodded. He lunged at the deputy, slashing her arm with the blade. Undeterred, she took the opportunity to grab his collar and shove him out the door. The sudden cold shocked Jason, but he kept his grip on the sword.

The deputy strolled out the door after him, black liquid dripping from her as she walked. She looked regal, like a queen about to order someone beheaded.

"All I wanted," she said, "was to settle down for a while and live a quiet life. Now, my brothers and remaining sister will hunt you to the ends of the Earth. Even if you triumph today, you will fall. Never doubt that."

They began to circle each other, their eye contact never faltering. Everything seemed eerily still. It was as though the wind itself had been driven away by the sheer force of the disdain the two combatants felt for each other.

"If you wanted to live a quiet life," Jason said, ignoring the threat, "you probably shouldn't have killed someone every time a major holiday came up."

"A lady's got to eat," the deputy replied with a shrug.

"Try French fries, maybe."

The deputy laughed, then dropped to the ground and lunged for Jason's ankles. He jumped backwards just in time, then stabbed downward, just narrowly missing her hand. Then, he lunged forward. The deputy drew back, but the point of the sword plunged into her right eye.

"Try… again," she hissed, grabbing the blade of the sword and shoving it backward, almost forcing Jason to drop it. Struck with a sudden idea, he grabbed his gun again and fired. The shot pierced the deputy's hand and she released the blade. She stared at the wound just a split second, but it was long enough for Jason to raise the sword, then bring it down with a devastating finality.

As Jason felt the sword melting back into his body, he turned from the body and walked back to the station to retrieve the belongings he'd been so rudely forced to leave behind. He also resisted the urge to kick the deputy's disembodied head.

The only thing that – almost – gave him pause was when someone screamed, "Oh my God, what _is_ that?"

* * *

"Oh my God, what _is_ that?"

Roy whipped around at the exclamation, alarm bells and flashing red lights going off in his head. An alien ship was soaring over the streets, wings crashing through tree limbs and breaking windows. It was clear from her expression that Koriand'r was seeing it too.

"I promise not to throw myself off a dock while you go fight that thing," he announced, loud enough for her to hear. Kori looked embarrassed, but shrugged off the long coat and sunglasses she'd put on as a "disguise" to reveal the lilac battle armor and flaming hair underneath, then rocketed into the sky.

The world always needed fucking saving.

* * *

Kori knew that it was cold. But the great thing about not _feeling_ the cold was that she could enjoy the feeling of the wind on her face as she rushed into battle no matter what the temperature of the battleground was. Even the icy, windy East Coast weather had no effect on her. What was a little ice and snow to a star?

The creature who'd caused all the fuss was waiting for her, spacecraft circling slowly enough for her to catch up to it without hardly trying. As she got near, a panel in the side slid open and its pilot flew out to "greet" her. He was gigantic, menacing, everything Kori had come to expect from a villain. Only, she didn't know of any extraterrestrial species that looked quite like a humanoid bat covered in alligator skin. As the Sun's fire welled up within her, so did apprehension.

"What do you want?" she called.

"You're Tamaranean, yeah?" the creature asked. For some reason, the last thing Kori had expected was for the creature to have some kind of British accent.

"I am Princess Koriand'r of Tamaran," Kori replied proudly. "And I believe I asked you to state your business."

"My business," he replied, "would be you."

As though to warn her, the Sun glinted off of something concealed within one of the creature's taloned hands. Kori shot upward, barely missing a bolt of green energy. Having missed its intended target, the energy bolt expressed its discontentment by destroying a nearby lamppost instead.

Kori's own magenta fire then exploded from her outstretched hands, pouring toward her attacker. How dare he presume to engage her in battle, then use such underhanded tactics? She was a _warrior_. He was just insulting.

Her opponent seemed to sense the attack and wrapped his leathery wings around him, dropping like a meteor toward the water, then snapping his wings outward again and gliding over the water's surface. This time, Kori didn't have time to dodge her opponent's blast, and it hit her like a punch in the stomach. Green light washed _through_ her skin, and as Kori fell, she realized with horror that she couldn't stop herself. She stared at the Sun, desperate to understand what was happening. The Sun stared back, blank-faced and holding no answers.

As her body hit the water, Kori realized just how cold Earth really was.

* * *

Roy didn't have to think, he just tore off his coat and hat, then dove after Kori. The water eagerly devoured him, turning his very bones to ice the moment it touched him. He struggled back to the surface, gasping for air. Every breath burned. So he dove back under the water.

Kori was sinking slowly, but she was still sinking, which would be a horrible inconvenience to any rescuer, but was especially so to one who was missing an arm. Getting to her was the easy part. Every stroke after grabbing her was a battle. The water dragged at Roy's clothes, it sucked the air from his lungs, and all the while it was freezing him from the outside in. The surface was still too far away, and every second was a nightmare.

He _needed_ to breathe. He could barely feel his fingers. Every moment was too much. He was so _tired_. Where was the surface?

His eyes hurt. Everything was too dark. Too cold. Exhausting.

Then suddenly he was being yanked from the water by the collar of his shirt and tossed on the ground like a clump of seaweed that a toddler had found particularly offensive.

"That was a bloody stupid thing to do, Ginger, but points for chivalry, I guess," a throaty voice somewhere in the vicinity said.

"Who. . . you?" Roy muttered between coughs.

Kori landed beside him with a spectacularly squishy sound, and Roy caught a glimpse of the same big, green thing that had just shot Kori out of the sky.

"Call me Crux," the big, green thing replied. "And you can thank me later."

Roy struggled to his feet, staring down the – gargoyle? alligator-flavored-man-bat? – monster who'd hurt Kori.

"Th-thank y-you?" he stuttered, teeth chattering together despite his best efforts. "You. H-hurt. Her."

"Whoa." Crux looked as worried as something with a bat/alligator face could look. "Stay down, man! You're gonna hurt yourself! She'll be alright, I just nullified her powers!"

But Roy had no intention of standing down. Instead, he advanced toward Crux. "Y-you m-mean the p-powers that w-would b-be helping h-her not f-freeze r-right n-now?"

"You can save her!" Crux replied. "I'm not going to stop you! I just couldn't let her hurt anyone!"

"H-h-hurt anyone?" Roy was shouting now, not caring who heard. _"She's a g-g-goddamn superhero!"_

Now Crux was on the defensive.

"She's also an alien," he replied. "And they can't be trusted, no matter what else you think she is."

"Are y-you f-f-fucking k-kidding me?"

"The Tamaraneans killed my parents! Everything I've done since then has been an effort to make sure it never happens to anyone else!" Crux shouted back. "You tell me if I'm kidding."

Wasn't that a stab of irony.

"And I b-bet you f-feel s-s-so much b-better now, d-don't you?" Roy asked, his voice dropping. He was too tired to be angry anymore.

Crux roared, shoving Roy as hard as he could. Roy flew backward, landing hard on the pavement. As his head cracked against the stone, he felt a blaze of warmth and heard a very familiar voice shout, "You. Hurt. Him!"

Then there was nothing.

* * *

"You. Hurt. Him!" the princess screamed, seeing where the man who'd tried to save her lay, motionless and covered in ice on the street. Her powers, apparently only temporarily pulled from her, blazed around her. She rose into the air in a halo of fury that definitely shouldn't have been possible, had the gun worked. Crux watched the display in horror.

"I don't understand!" he stammered. "Your powers- I thought-?"

"Perhaps," she said, "your little toy would've permanently incapacitated an ordinary member of my race, but I believe I mentioned that _I_ am Princess Koriand'r of Tamaran, and I am not so easily bested. Especially not by cowards like you!"

True to cowardly form, Crux turned and fled. Nothing was going at all according to plan. Especially not the hipster who seemingly appeared out of nowhere to point a handgun at him.

"I sensed something needed an ass-kicking and came as fast as I could," the hipster quipped.

"Jason!" Koriand'r cried in relief. "I was just about to destroy this gargoyle that tried to kill us! Perhaps you would like to torture him instead?"

Crux dropped to the ground and raised his hands in surrender.

"I give, okay?" he said, not knowing who this Jason guy was but fairly certain Koriand'r wasn't kidding about the torture bit. Anyone who looked like they got excited about overnight oatmeal was rarely good news. "Just don't hurt me!"

"Depends on whether her buddy makes it," Jason replied coolly, lowering his sunglasses to stare directly into Crux's eyes. "Because if he dies, you die. Messily."

 **A/N:**

 **There's a tentative update schedule up on the Tumblr now! Chapter 3 will either be delightfully early or very late because I have a lot of weekend shit going on! Hashtag moving to Indiana gradually and slowly like an ominous fog! Hashtag I was real sleepy for about a week after I got out of the ER and that set me behind so who knows!**

 **Chapter notes:**  
 **-Ollie and Dinah will be back, but not for a fairly long time!**  
 **-Kori likes to watch the sunrise from waaaaay the fuck up there, and I think that's adorable. I've been wanting to write about her doing that since The Difference Between Killing and Destroying, but it didn't fit there.**  
 **-Section 2: "darkness! no parents!" Section 3: "I'M ON A BOAT! I'M ON A BOAT! TAKE A GOOD, HARD LOOK AT THE MOTHERFUCKING BOAT!"**  
 **-All that shit Roy says about Deathstroke's team? Happened. Some of them also murdered Ryan Choi. Slade spiked Roy's heroin with a drug made from children's souls. It was wild.**  
 **-The going to Khandaq bit, however, is completely made up. The series basically ends with Joseph going "guess we should stick together, huh?" then Flashpoint! New 52! Nothing makes sense anymore! But, Qurac really had moved in on Khandaq, so I'm building on that.**  
 **-I SWEAR there's an actual name for the style of dagger Jason carries, like, I think it was mentioned in some comic or other? But I looked at styles of daggers, and the closest match I found was an Indonesian kris. So I'm saying it's a modernized variation of a kris until I find out otherwise.**  
 **-In Tennessee, being armed to the teeth is very touristy. Catch me at Cumberland Gap with 2-3 concealed knives!**  
 **-Everything Roy says in the bar is based on stuff from Red Hood/Arsenal and pure speculation. I feel like I'm the one who's been knocking back tequila like my life depends on it. I'm that Always Sunny screencap of Charlie with all the paper and string. You know the one.**  
 **-By "Georgia accent," I mean the typical Army vet twang. Like Tommy Lee Jones in Men in Black!**  
 **-Jason's a nerd, and the fake names he uses in this chapter are only a small dose of that.**  
 **-"Serpents & Spells" is the DCU version of D&D.**  
 **-A dpa'dam is a Tibetan sword, and this is important(ish) later.**  
 **-More extensive notes on this later, but if all the certifying and re-certifying I've had to do for lifeguarding has taught me anything, it's that rescuing people is HARD. And that's with two arms, in a temperature-controlled pool, while properly attired for swimming.**  
 **-Some of my earliest memories are of how much I absolutely HATED seaweed. I stand by my simile.**  
 **-My version of Crux is less of a villain and more of a misguided hero. He really wants to save people, he just hasn't figured out how to go about it quite yet.**  
 **-I need a drink.**  
 **Peace!**


	3. Breaking and Exiting

_There was warmth, like sun shining through a window_.

" _Please_ ," Kori was whispering into his hair, " _come back to me_."

Roy's eyes fluttered, and he was aware of the tightness in his chest, the burning in his lungs, the pounding in his head. He coughed, violently, but Kori never let go of him. As he resurfaced in the waking world, he became fully aware the he was wrapped in an emergency blanket, the coats he and Kori had discarded on the pier, and Kori's arms.

"You're alive!" she exclaimed, her face lighting up when their eyes met.

"Goddammit," he managed to say. Why couldn't the universe just give him a break?

"It's a good thing," she said.

"Is it?" he whispered.

"I think it is."

Roy surveyed his surroundings. It seemed that he and Kori were sitting on the floor of a tiny aircraft's cabin. It seemed that the thing was either piloting itself, or being flown by someone Roy couldn't see – which was entirely possible from his limited vantage point. It also seemed that the gargoyle thing that had tried to kill them was imprisoned in a large tube at the back of the cabin.

Roy started. Tube or not, he didn't want _that_ anywhere near him.

"What's that thing doing here?" he wheezed, going into another coughing fit when he tried to scramble away.

Kori pounded his back until he stopped coughing, then replied in a raised voice that addressed the gargoyle as much as it did him, "He is going to explain to you why it is that you nearly died by his hand. I'm sure you're curious."

"Yeah," he replied. "Little bit."

A bigger part of him didn't really care and just wished the thing had finished the job, but he didn't feel it was pertinent to mention that.

The gargoyle – Crux – shifted uncomfortably in his too-small enclosure.

"Look," he said, "I swear I wasn't trying to kill anyone. I just wanted to hit back at the things that killed my parents. I was seventeen. We were on holiday in the States, and something hit our car. I woke up in a hospital and suddenly I didn't have parents anymore. When I saw the news, saw that two Tamaraneans duking it out had damaged almost half the Bay Area, and I saw a picture of our car among the pictures of the damage, I got so _angry_. Because how _dare_ these things come here and use Earth as their fucking battleground, not caring who they hurt, who they _kill_ , just to fly off once they're satisfied? I thought that superheroes were supposed to stop these things from happening, but where were all the heroes when _I_ needed them? When _my parents_ needed them? So I got an internship with Lex Luthor, and I became Crux. I augmented my DNA to become stronger and faster. I built weapons that could de-power all sorts of aliens without killing them, and I did everything I could to be ready when alien threats arose. But look what happened. My weapons didn't work and I almost killed a human. God," he pounded the wall of his prison in defeat, "it's all pointless, isn't it?"

Ordinarily, Roy might've felt sorry for the guy, but currently, he was in no mood to be gracious.

"Yeah," he replied, pulling away from Kori. "It is pointless. You might win a couple battles if you're lucky, but the war never ends. Any you? _You_ didn't even try. You just blindly lashed out at any alien you saw, didn't you? How did you even find us?"

"I have tracking software that recognizes the alien species that most commonly visit Earth," Crux said quietly. "It scans news sites and social media for any instances it can find, then alerts me. It picked up your superhero in the background of an Instagram photo. And here we are."

After Roy had come to, Jason zoned out and focused on piloting. He didn't really care why Crux had done the things he'd done, the point was that he'd done them while Jason was in a particularly bad mood. Ducra, one of the few trainers Talia had sent him to that he'd actually liked, was dead. And he hadn't known. He thought he was connected to her All-Caste, but he'd never realized that something had been wrong. _Way to go, asshole._

He gunned the accelerator. It was a long way to New Mexico, but the DEO would be the best place to dump a guy obsessed with aliens to the point of… well… everything Crux had done was borderline crazy. Besides, he wouldn't wish Arkham – the other obvious option – on anyone. His own time there had only increased his PTSD, which seemed counterproductive for mental health services.

He drummed on the steering controls. What to do after taking care of Crux? He assumed the All-Caste would be in bad shape if Ducra was dead, but maybe there were still answers to be found there. There was only one way to find out.

He jumped when Kori tapped his shoulder.

"Yeah?" he snapped.

"I figured you might like a break," she said. "You've been flying for hours."

Jason was about to shrug off the offer, then realized he actually was starting to feel tired.

"Fine," he replied, handing off the controls. "Thanks."

He stretched as he made his way back to the main part of the cabin. Roy was slouched in a corner, wrapped in two coats and a blanket, his arm wrapped around his knees, pulling them into his chest. Crux was in a similar position in his tube. Just to be contrary, Jason stretched out when he sat down, crossing his legs and folding his hands behind his head.

"So," Roy said, acknowledging Jason's presence in the most roundabout way possible, "my clothes are on the floor in a wet pile. How many of you saw me naked?"

"If we had left your clothes on, hypothermia would've killed you," Jason replied, closing his eyes.

"Great, so everyone saw me naked, then." He paused, then, "And I practically need a DNR order around you people."

"'Scuse me for not wanting your death on my conscience." On the outside, Jason tried to be nonchalant, but inside, he was reeling. _What happened to Roy Harper?_

Roy sighed. "I guess that's fair."

"Look, it's not like anyone's asking you to strap on your tights, pretend everything's normal, and start slinging arrows again. The people who care about you are just trying not to let you drag yourself down any farther."

"Jason." There was a sudden edge to Roy's voice. "Look at me." Jason opened his eyes reluctantly. Roy was trembling despite the layers he was wrapped in, his eyes dark and tired. "The 'people who care about me' haven't done shit. While I was in a coma, Ollie took away the only thing that would've given me even the smallest amount of closure when he killed the man who destroyed Star City and murdered my daughter. He made everything about him, just like always. I started using again because I couldn't stand being awake. So Dick threw me in a mental hospital and left me there, bleeding and hallucinating, tied down and completely alone. Everyone else just acted like they were afraid I would explode if they got too close. So it's pretty clear that I'm not worth saving, except when it benefits someone else's ego."

"Damn," Jason replied. "That does sound like a shitshow. But you're still here. Maybe that's worth something."

"Jason, I'm tired. Fuck off."

 _Maybe, in retrospect, it was a little strange that S.T.A.R. sent an intern to deliver a dangerous criminal to Area 51, but Agent Calhoun didn't think twice about it when she met them at the gate. The point was that a criminal needed containing._

 _The intern seemed nervous as he shuffled from his transport, and Calhoun could see why. The criminal the report had referred to as "Crux" was a hulking abomination that looked like a combination man, crocodile, and bat. He towered over the intern walking beside him, the high-tech handcuffs binding his wrists looking like a flimsy toy._

 _The intern was a decent distraction, though, Calhoun thought. He had coppery skin, dark, curly hair, and tortoiseshell-framed glasses, which seemed like a bold choice, but one he pulled off quite well. His nose was a little crooked, like it had been broken, and he had a scar that bisected one eyebrow._

He must be… very athletic, _Calhoun thought, admiring the way the real-life Greek god filled out a standard S.T.A.R. Labs polo shirt as he signed the paperwork her partner handed him._

 _"So, do I just, uh, leave him with you, then?" he asked, his voice as nervous as his demeanor._

 _"Oh yeah, you're fine," Calhoun replied before her partner could open his mouth. "Have a nice day!"_

 _"Uh, you too?"_

Damn, Nervous Intern was cute with his face scrunched up in confusion.

 _"What is this, a grocery store?" Calhoun's partner asked her as the intern walked back to his transport._

 _"Please, Moritz. Like you weren't checking him out?" she fired back, taking Crux by the arm to lead the – apparently sedated – creature back to the base._

 _"Maybe, but at least I didn't make a fool of myself," his mouth said, but the redness in his face said that Calhoun was one hundred percent right._

 _They both turned briefly to get one last glance at Nervous Intern's ass._

 _"S.T.A.R. got new transports again, I see," Moritz said after a pause, officially changing the subject._

 _That was that._

"Can we please go home?" Roy begged Kori the second Jason was back through the door. "I've had all the adventuring I can stomach for the next year and a half."

Kori shrugged. "I would be cool with that, but I don't know what Jason's plans are."

Roy turned and pointedly glared at Jason, who was tossing his disguise into one pile on the floor, and pulling his regular clothes out of another pile on the floor.

"I got stuff to do in Tibet," he replied, unapologetically shirtless in front of God and everybody. "It doesn't make sense to go the opposite direction first."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Roy said with as much emotion as he could muster (which was not much.) He needed a nap that was on purpose, instead of the result of physical trauma.

"Look," Jason said, looking Roy in the eyes with the most urgent expression a person could make while pulling his pants back on, "you can literally stay in the car. Ship. Thing. I just really need to do this as soon as possible, and it isn't practical to backtrack."

"Fine," Roy conceded, sighing loudly, "do whatever. I don't give a shit."

"I would actually be interested in helping you with whatever your mission is," Kori said, shooting Roy an apologetic glance before returning her attention to Jason. "I need to do something other than reading electronic newspapers and feeling sorry for myself."

Jason nodded slightly, zipping an armored shirt he'd been wearing under the douchey fleece sweatshirt Roy hoped was part of another disguise.

"You will more than likely get to blow something up," he said.

Kori smiled brightly. "Wonderful!"

Roy fumed, wishing he could cross his arms. The action gave him an idea.

"You know what?" he said, pushing himself to his feet. Kori moved to help him, but he shrugged her off. This was something he needed to do himself. "I changed my mind. A field trip to Tibet for God-knows-why sounds great. But we're making a pit stop in San Francisco first."

Jason finished adjusting the leather jacket that completed his "Trying-Too-Hard-To-Be-Edgy" ensemble and shrugged. "Sure, no problem."

Roy wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, but an agreement wasn't it and he felt angry. He wanted an argument. He wanted to shout at Jason, to push back against everything that pushed him around. He wanted to be treated like a person instead of a bomb. He wanted to explain himself to someone who wouldn't just nod and "uh-huh" along with the story told by the depressed former superhero with the missing arm and the dead daughter. He wanted to feel real again.

"Thanks," he said.

Being in Titans Tower again was strange. Being there because she'd broken in was even stranger, and Koriand'r was no stranger to strangeness.

"What made you change your mind?" she asked Roy as he searched the archives for… whatever it was he was looking for. Kori hadn't thought it prudent to ask _that_ question.

"Maybe I'm just not a 'stay in the car' kind of person," he replied from somewhere near the back of the room.

"I suppose that's understandable."

A lot of things about Roy's situation were understandable, Kori thought. Being alone was hard. Watching people she loved die was hard. And if one of those people had been her own child, someone she'd tried with every fiber of her being to protect, she… she didn't know _what_ she would do.

She wasn't afraid of Roy, she realized. She was afraid she wouldn't be able to help him until it was too late.

 _Starfire?_ a thought that was not her own asked. Kori jumped like she'd been splashed in the face and looked around the hallway for whoever had intruded her thoughts.

Miss Martian was peering around a corner, cautious but not particularly fearful. She brightened when she saw it was Kori, and floated down the hallway to greet her.

"Starfire! I can't believe you're here!" she exclaimed. "Where have you been? The team hasn't been the same without you."

"I've been…" Kori bit her lip, trying to find the words to explain herself. "I suppose I've been trying to discover who I am as an individual. It's something I put off too long, and it's something I'm still figuring out. I only came back because," she stopped, mid-sentence. She had no way to explain what she was actually doing there.

Miss Martian stepped back, her eyes glowing red. "You aren't alone."

Roy stepped out of the room behind Kori.

"Don't worry," he said, "we're about to leave."

The Martian girl looked horrified by the sight of him. Kori's heart sank. The so-called "good guys" really had turned their backs on Roy. Had any of them tried to help him? Or had they already written him off, the way they had with Jason?

"Leave _now_ ," Miss Martian said. It was not a request.

"No worries," Roy replied, briefly touching Kori's hand in a way she interpreted to be reassuring, "we were just about to. Like I said."

Kori opened her mouth to apologize, but Miss Martian cut her off.

"I don't like being lied to, Koriand'r."

Kori turned away and followed Roy down the hall. The ice in her former teammate's voice told her what she had already expected to hear: she was an outlaw now, too.

Roy flexed the fingers of his prosthetic arm. They moved the way human fingers did, but the bright red color betrayed their not-so-human nature.

"It's interesting," he said, eyes fixated on the red metal. "I knew Vic was making another arm to replace the first one once I'd healed, but I figured he would've scrapped it after I ran off."

"You underestimate how much Victor cares," Kori replied, almost as interested as he was. "Not everyone is as keen to give up on you as you say Dick was."

"Thanks for reminding me," Roy grumbled, making a fist. "He always wanted to be the Batman. Guess he finally got his wish."

"Sorry. I only wished to reassure you that your friends are still your friends."

"Because Miss Martian was so friendly."

"Most of your friends," Kori amended.

"Not to be that guy," Jason interrupted, "but can we stop playing the 'Roy's Life is a Mess' game? Pretty sure I'm not the only one that's tired of it."

" _You_ basically abducted _me_ , remember?" Roy fired back, finally looking away from his arm.

"You weren't the one that statement was mainly aimed at, but excuse me for not letting you die of hypothermia on a dock in Maine."

"Oh, don't worry about that, I really wouldn't have minded." Roy's voice was as cold as the water that had nearly killed him.

"Stop it!" Kori shouted, her hair and eyes flaring brighter.

Jason and Roy both mumbled apologies, and for a while, the cabin was silent.

"So," Roy said after a decent amount of awkward silence, "anything cool happen on _Top Gear_ lately?"

The airship set down in an expansive courtyard flanked by cliffs, caves, and ornate buildings. The entire place seemed to be holding its breath.

"There aren't even birds here," Kori said, voice barely above a whisper. "What is this place?"

"The All-Caste," Jason replied, looking for any signs of life whatsoever. "Where all are equal and order is found in truth and discipline."

"I didn't know there was a Karl Marx theme park," Roy said, ruining the moment.

Jason opened his mouth to retort, then coughed, choking on black smoke that poured into the cabin.

"Why are you here?" the voice within the smoke asked.

"Need… answers…" Jason gasped.

"Truth, Jason," she snapped.

"Morbid… curiosity?"

The smoke dissipated.

"That's better," the woman said, folding her arms. "You shouldn't have come."

Jason put his head between his knees and heaved, gasping for clean air.

"Little Bird…?" Kori asked, voice uncertain.

"Everything okay?" Roy finished for her, then added, "Because if you've lost it, you're not flying us home."

"The Essence of this place doesn't like me," Jason gasped.

"I never _said_ I don't like you," the woman argued. "I said you were temperamental and unstable."

"You and everyone else," Jason replied, voice almost back to normal.

Roy and Kori stared at each other.

"What?" Roy asked.

"The Essence of the All-Caste. She's mean."

"I cannot believe you," she scoffed.

"'She?'" Roy asked.

" _That_ is the part that _you_ are struggling with?" Kori asked him, incredulous.

"If you would quit doing that ghost thing," Jason told the woman, "we could get on with our lives and be out of your melodramatic hair that much sooner."

The woman sighed dramatically and seemed to shift a little. From the looks on their faces, Jason was pretty sure Kori and Roy could see her now. She had sharp cheekbones, sharp features in general, and eyes like deep, dark voids. Her pure white hair hung down her back in intricately beaded braids, striking a sharp contrast against her black robes.

"Are you happy now?" she asked.

"I have several questions," Roy replied.

"You have one question," she said. It was nothing less than a concrete statement of indisputable fact.

"Well," Kori began, looking for how to phrase the question on everyone's minds, "I suppose we were wondering –"

"What the _fuck_?" Roy interrupted.

"What he said." Kori looked pleased by the succinct phrasing. Roy just looked annoyed.

The woman looked annoyed as well, but probably figured the response was the best she was going to get.

"One thousand years ago," she began, "there was a convergence of the multiverse. The Earth's Lazarus Pits… shifted. For twelve hours, they did more than restore. They were able to grant tremendous power as well, and seven human emissaries came forward to receive that power. One of them was my mother. I was conceived by humanity, but born from that untitled power, and became tethered to the land where I was born, my mother's All-Caste, where she took refuge after realizing what the power from the convergence had done to her.

"She and her fellows, as I understand it, wrought unimaginable destruction after receiving their powers. I understand now that those who are unworthy of the powers can only be corrupted by them. When I was born, she turned from destruction to creation. But the other six had no such moments of clarity, and even as their powers slowly diminished over the centuries, their delight for sadism remained, and they wrought death and despair wherever they found the opportunity. They see it as their birthright, their destiny to be conquerors. So my mother and I began training protectors who could drive back the forces of those six, and they slowly faded to the fringes of society, little more than bad dreams and cruel desires.

"But another convergence is coming, and we've grown complacent while the six, hungry for more power, have grown bolder." She looked even more grave than she had when she began speaking. "Less than a month ago, they came here and slaughtered everyone in sight, including my mother. Now, they seek to destroy anyone who stands in the way of, as they see it, becoming 'whole' again."

"How might we help?" Kori asked before either of the guys could say something stupid.

The woman's nostrils flared. "Leave. I am trying to preserve what I can of this place, but if the Twice-Born has led the six back here –"

"Five," Jason interrupted.

"Excuse me?" she snapped, void-eyes seeming to blaze despite their darkness.

"There are only five of them now. I killed one of them."

She scrunched her brows together in confusion. "How?"

Jason shrugged. "Summoned a funky knife from the depths of my soul or whatever, then cut her head off."

The woman looked like she needed to sit down.

"No one," she said, "has managed a tulpa in the heat of battle before. Before them, certainly, but not during. What makes you different?"

"Well apparently," Jason said, looking more amused the more uncomfortable the woman became, "I'm the 'Twice-Born,' so maybe I'm special."

The woman went back to looking annoyed. "It's not that. You're not the first Twice-Born to receive our instruction, you're just the most infuriating. I suppose you actually should stay for a time. Mayhaps there's more to you than arrogance and a chip on your shoulder."

 **Aaaaand we're back! Hopefully for a while. At this point in the story, I want to start putting up bios on the blog in between updates, so keep an eye out for that!**  
 **-Basically, my Crux has a variation of the same motives as Luthor, but he comes from a place of genuine concern and has more of a desire to help than control. I'll talk more about my take on him in his bio, but feel free to ask questions you might have!**  
 **-In the original comics, they did send Crux to Arkham, but I cannot imagine Jason sending someone there. Nope, ain't happening.**  
 **-Dick really lived up to his nickname in Justice League: The Rise of Arsenal, and I'll be forever salty. But I, personally, commend Ollie for killing Prometheus. I hated that guy. However, I can definitely understand Roy's anger. It was a sticky situation with no right answer, imo.**  
 **-If the DEO doesn't operate out of Area 51, then What's The Point**  
 **-For me, the broken nose and scarred eyebrow are Jason essentials. I doubt he has them in canon, because God forbid anyone have a distinct look, but they're there in my heart.**  
 **-No time for shame, there's stuff to do in Tibet! (the douchey fleece, though, for the record, was part of a disguise.)**  
 **-Let! Kori! Blow things up!**  
 **-So technically, the OG Titans Tower was in New York. But There's one in San Francisco as well, I swear. Either that or some kind of Mandela Effect fuckery is going on and I am actually a purveyor of misinformation. I AM A BEACON OF SIN!**  
 **-So the arm I'm describing is actually based on one from the comics, but not the canon-canon comics, if that makes any sense? In Convergence: Titans, Roy's prosthetic is a red one that [mild spoilers!]. In the mainstream, his arm was gold and had a blade he could shoot out of his wrist, Assassin's Creed-style, but I imagine he would've lost that while imprisoned in Qrac. More on that later, maybe? Anyway, this is the Convergence arm.**  
 **-Roy Harper likes Top Gear and you can't change my mind.**  
 **-Essence looking like a teenager was Some Bullshit. Just picture Lucy Liu with white hair and Void Eyes instead. Much better.**  
 **-So here's the truth. I don't know what the Untitled actually were supposed to be, so I'm thinking they're a little like parasites, existing only to feed off humanity. I'm not going to spoil the exact nature of their powers yet, but if you know what to look for, the answer is in a single paragraph.**  
 **-The Essence, because of the nature of her very existence, is tied to the land she inhabits and can't leave. She's more of a spirit than a person.**  
 **-And finally, the reason Tibet was important: Jason's dpa'dam is, in a way, a tulpa. Tulpas are a Tibetan thing and, according to the one ghost book I read that mentioned tulpas, are thoughts made real. Usually they're creatures, but not always. And, in my opinion, they'd be very hard to create during a fight.**  
 **That's all for this week! Thanks for reading! If you like the story and have been following it, please leave a comment! Or I will break into your house and hide a life-sized cardboard cutout of the Babbadook in your shower! If you haven't been following it, also leave a comment! I really love reading comments! They fill my heart with adulation! I love you!**


	4. Photographs and Memories

The Essence wasn't sure what to think of the presence of Jason Todd and his band of misfits in her All-Caste. On the one hand, help was needed where it could be found, as she was unable to leave the sanctuary she occupied, and the order's numbers were dwindling. On the other hand, she could sense that though each member of the Twice-Born's trio was strong, they were lacking in direction, and by racing to the All-Caste immediately after dispensing with one of its enemies, could lead those enemies to return and destroy the floundering remains of the order.

But, she admitted to herself, it was too late to do much about that last bit.

"Since you've likely got no idea what you're up against, allow me to explain," she began, purposefully "forgetting" to invite them to sit down. "Two from the untitled order are dead, leaving five to contend with. This is good, excepting that the powers formerly possessed by the deceased untitled remain within the order, strengthening those remaining. Though not as strong as it once was, their control over mankind's states of being is formidable as well as unstable. It seems likely they will attempt to replace the two missing from their number soon – as the next convergence is swiftly approaching – and restore their balance by convincing two of my mother's students to join them. They'll kill the rest and destroy this place, then go on to seek the Lazarus Pit."

The three mortals blinked.

"Why, though?" the one with the robotic arm asked.

If the Essence had a soul, she would've been sure she had felt it leave her body for a moment in frustration.

"Excuse me?" she asked, after having regained some composure.

He crossed his arms. "Why do they want all this power? What are they even doing with it?"

She hoped the Twice-Born would take some initiative toward educating the mortals he'd brought to the sanctuary, but he just kinda stood there.

"Those who seek power," she replied, "often seek it for no other reason than because they enjoy having it. The superiority they feel in having it is often enough to justify whatever they did to receive it."

She waited for one of them to make a joke about politicians or somesuch, but none of them did. Instead, the alien woman nodded and asked, "How do we defeat them?"

The Essence almost smiled. This one had potential.

"You'll want to meet with Siaru, the Archivist," she said. "He can help you find any answers you would waste my time searching for."

"Archives are this way," Jason said, indicating one of the most battle-damaged temple/cave combinations. He strode toward the half-collapsed entrance with the confidence of a captain who knew his brigade would follow.

It was funny, Kori thought. As much of a free agent as Jason was, he also had the bearing of a leader. The real kind, who fought beside their troops in whatever theatre the war took them to. Dick and Tim had similar qualities, but fighting beside Jason would be nothing like fighting beside his brothers. Though there was a familial resemblance, he fought dirty as well.

As Kori's eyes adjusted to the dim lighting inside the archive building, she could've sworn she saw a child attending the desk.

"Siaru," Jason addressed the child, "we need access to the archives."

The child looked up at him from the parchment he'd been writing on with an eyebrow raised.

"Excuse me?" he asked, voice dry and annoyed.

Jason narrowed his eyes and glared for a moment, then sighed.

"Master Siaru," he corrected, "my company and I humbly request admittance to the archives, as we are in need of the knowledge contained therein."

"Better," the child conceded. "Are you willing to pay the price of admittance?"

"Are you kidding me?" Roy mumbled under his breath. "What is this, college?"

The child glared at him.

"If you have a problem, you are welcome to wait outside," he snapped. "Though I might recommend avoiding direct sunlight. You are incredibly pale."

"Thanks. I kinda spent the last of my money on impulse-buying drugs, so I guess I'll be finding a tree to sit under. That's free, right?"

Kori sucked in a breath. This was not going at all well.

Siaru looked a bit disgusted, but clarified, "The price has nothing to do with money. What use is that? Entrance to the archives will cost each of you one memory, which will most likely be returned anyway. You do still have memories, right?"

"For the love of X'Hal! Leave him alone," Kori said, stepping forward. She'd made her decision. With how many memories she was already missing, of what consequence was forfeiting one more? "I, for one, am willing to lend you a memory. How do I… go about that?"

The child held out a hand and made a beckoning gesture.

"Come forward."

Kori did, and the child placed a hand on her forehead. She felt a cold tingling for a moment, then the child pulled away a ball of light. Everyone watched as he swirled it around in his fingers for a moment, then stuffed it into a clay jar. Kori didn't feel different at all. And though she did wonder what memory had been taken, she couldn't figure out how to figure that out.

"Next?"

Jason stepped forward and, as though he had done it hundreds of times, bowed his head and let Siaru draw a memory out. For a moment, Kori thought she'd seen his skin glow. She tucked the thought away for later.

"And how about you?" Siaru asked, looking at Roy after stuffing Jason's memory into a bottle. "Will you be joining them? Lately, the trees seem to have accrued an unfortunate beetle infestation."

"Of course they have," Roy said. He stepped forward. "Do it."

Siaru pulled a memory from Roy, then waved the three of them toward a doorway behind him.

"Enjoy!" he said in a way that was most likely mocking before putting Roy's memory into a container.

Jason silently took the lead again. The passage beyond the doorway was lit by gaslights that cast their dim glow down a staircase cut from stone. The only sound was three sets of footsteps descending that staircase. The All-Caste was still holding its breath.

And then Roy started humming. Jason and Kori both froze, then turned to look at him.

"What?" Roy asked with a shrug. "It's a little too intense down here."

Jason gave him a pointed look, but said nothing and continued walking. A few moments later, however, she heard him singing along to the tune Roy had been humming.

" _Never took this road before,_ " he was mumbling, " _destination unknown."_

It was a little bit cute. Cute enough that Kori was caught completely off guard when a dragon lunged up at them from the bottom of the stairs.

Her starbolts blazed up from within her, ready for a fight, while Roy stumbled backwards, a mechanism within his prosthetic arm making a whirring noise.

Jason, however, stepped forward, took a deep breath, and held out one hand. Within the space of a breath, a sword appeared in his hand from the far reaches of absolutely nowhere. And Jason was _definitely_ glowing this time. He presented the sword to the dragon, holding it horizontally in front of him with the blade pointed downward, and bowed.

The dragon nodded once, then moved aside.

"Don't worry about the intern," Jason said as he stepped into the room and the sword disappeared from his hand. "She's probably a little worried still after the attack, but now she knows you're with me."

Kori willed the energy clenched in her fists back into her soul, feeling more than a little disappointed. She had really thought she would've gotten to fight something by that point.

"Now are we going to learn how to defeat your untitled monsters?" she asked.

A soft, blue-green glow filled the space. It seemed to flow toward the center of the room, where it coalesced into the form of an elderly Asian woman. She was small, round, and withered, but graceful as well; the cane she leaned on seemed more an accessory than an aid. Not one pale hair was out of place in the bun on her head, and her robes looked as though they didn't know the meaning of the word "wrinkled." Her shoulders were straight, her eyes were sharp, and one hand rested firmly on her hip.

"You bet your golden ass you are," she replied.

Siaru examined the golden woman's memory first. Out of the three of them, she seemed the most likely to have something useful in her head.

He released the glowing ball of thought from its container and gazed into it until it began to open, the light changing colors and taking forms more rapidly until it absorbed him into the scenario.

 _He was rocketing toward Earth in an escape pod, desperate, terrified, and angry. Gordanian drone cruisers were pursuing close behind. The pod was going as fast as it could, and all that could be done was to send prayers to X'Hal, the Living Goddess._

 _The pod crashed into the alien world and Siaru – or, technically, the woman in the memory – immediately took flight. The buildings were as tall as the coliseums of Okaara, yet inorganic as Psion spacecraft. Could this place provide refuge? The explosive arrivals of the cruisers seemed to say no._

 _But then, like a miracle from the Goddess herself, a band of Earth warriors attired in regalia of every conceivable color appeared, leaping into combat against the drones. Their leaders wore red and gold and battled the hardest of them all, shouting things in Earth tongues. One of them, a tall, nearly statuesque warrior with bronze skin and long, dark hair directed a query toward Siaru/the gold woman, but they were unable to understand, and merely shot Sun fire at the Gordanian troops. The tall warrior turned to the other warriors and shouted something affirming before snaring one of the drones in a golden lasso, then tossing that one into an oncoming (though rather poorly organized) phalanx._

 _As though they had come to their senses for the first time in the entire history of their species, the Gordanians retreated. They took to the skies thoroughly humiliated, and the rush of victory from the winning side was intoxicating._

 _The second leader, who wore a gold cloak and had as much green as red in their outfit, touched Siaru/the gold woman on the arm, and said something that sounded somewhat demanding, yet also somewhat concerned._

 _Siaru/the golden woman felt an incredible frustration at not being able to understand what was being said, but such great relief at being safe that without hesitation, they gathered the Earth warrior into their arms and kissed them deeply, feeling a connection form to the planet itself as they did so._

 _"Greetings or hello!" they said in the same Earth language they'd been unable to understand only moments before, now absorbed by contact with one of the Earth's inhabitants. "I am Princess Koriand'r of the planet Tamaran! Thank you for saving my life!"_

Siaru was pulled from the memory. It was interesting, he decided, but not particularly helpful.

Jason still remembered the first time he saw one of the "ghosts" of the All-Caste. Seeing Ducra as one of those ghosts was even stranger than the ghosts themselves. Yet there she was, leaning on her staff, staring him down with her amused half-smile on her face, no shits given about the strangeness of her very existence.

"So it seems you have friends now," she observed, looking at Roy and Kori, then looking back at him.

"Not really," Roy replied. Which was fair.

Ducra barked a laugh.

"Snarky! Like sure seems to attract like, doesn't it?" she cackled. "You want my advice on how to stop the world domination squad? Learn to work together. You can start, Jason, by explaining how the archives work, because I know you haven't."

So, dying hadn't changed Ducra at all, it seemed. Jason always knew she was too mean to die properly.

"The archives are full of the knowledge and memories of the fallen warriors who have chosen to be buried here," he explained. "The Archivists preserve them, and then they can be accessed when the knowledge is needed. This way, if something like what did happen to the teachers were to happen, their knowledge can still be passed down."

Roy nodded along like he cared, while Kori's eyes widened and her hair flared brighter.

"This is brilliant!" she gushed, then turned to Ducra. "May I please be interred here when I die?"

Ducra's smile became genuine.

"Now this one has potential, Jason! Space Girl, we'd be glad to have you. Ask the intern if you need any help."

Jason rolled his eyes and strolled over to the intern.

"Can you help us find the best way to take down the Untitled Order?" he asked her. She stirred, stretched, then trotted around the room until she found the vault she was looking for and pointed to it with one wing.

"Thanks!"

He had to concentrate to remember the summoning, but calling the ghost forward was easy once he did. And somehow, a nineteenth-century German gentleman being the one to stroll through the wall shouldn't have surprised him, but it still did.

" _Ja?_ " the ghost asked, yawning and stretching. " _Was ist?_ "

"We need to know the best way to take down the Untitled Order," Jason replied in English, not one to waste time with arbitrary things like politeness. "Permanently."

The ghost thought for a moment.

"Hmm," he mused, this time in English. "You will be wanting to bring them into a confrontation with the keepers of the Lazarus Pits, and then be getting far out of the way. Let them destroy each other."

He yawned again, then returned to his vault.

"'The keepers of the Lazarus Pits?'" Kori repeated. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"The League of Assassins," Jason and Roy answered in unison.

"That crazy bastard wants us to trick the League and the Order into fighting," Jason finished.

"Because sure! Why not?" Roy added.

The Twice-Born's memory was even less helpful than the gold woman's; just a faded glimpse of him as a child with the flu, curled up against a man in bat-themed armor and watching an insipid film about "true love" and stars who were also people. Disgusting.

Which left the rude one with the metal arm. Siaru released his memory from its jar and waited for it to expand.

 _"Stupid bow!" a little girl cursed, glaring at an arrow she'd apparently fired into a tree three feet to the right of the actual target._

 _"Seriously?" he heard himself reply. "Lian, the_ bow _can't be stupid, it's an inanimate object."_

 _The girl tossed her pink, child-sized longbow onto the ground, where it lay forlornly on the grass._

 _"You called the cable box stupid last night."_

 _"But…" he hedged, "but I was referring to the people who work for the cable company. It's different."_

 _The girl scrunched her tiny nose._

 _"But I can't do it," she complained. "I missed every time."_

 _He picked up the bow and placed it back in her hand. "Remember when you couldn't even pull the string back? And now, look how far you can shoot them! You're doing great."_

 _The girl contemplated the bow in her hand._

 _"Why can't I just use the crossbow?" she asked. "It's way easier."_

 _"It's not about what's easy," he replied. "It's about learning new skills, not relying on what you can do already. Just like in school."_

 _He paused for a moment, then said, "Speaking of which, you need to finish getting ready."_

 _Now, the child seemed disappointed to have to quit._

 _"Come on," she pleaded, "just a few more. Please, please, please!"_

 _"Later," he replied firmly. "Now go brush your teeth."_

Siaru extracted himself from the memory at the sound of the three mortals shuffling back up the stairs. It had been fairly useless anyway, full of nasty things like _feelings_ and _nostalgia_.

"Take your memories back," he addressed the mortals. "They proved quite useless to me."

He released the shining orbs of thought from their containers and watched them flutter back into their owners' heads like moths drawn to bitchiness. Each of them looked sad for a moment, remembering. Then the gold woman strode purposefully toward him.

"Are you able to restore memories you haven't taken?" she asked. "Because I've… misplaced some. And I need to remember."

Siaru sighed.

"I'm an archivist," he replied. "I only deal in memories that are freely given to me. If you've 'lost' your memories, then you can find them again. Search within yourself, I suppose. There's no such thing as losing a memory."

Predictably, the gold woman looked disappointed.

"Oh," she said.

"I'm not going with you," Roy said. They'd returned to the transport after the – pretty contrived, in Roy's opinion – chat with the ghosts inside the mountain. The whole thing was really more Connor's scene than his.

Jason just shrugged. "I know. Didn't expect you to."

For some reason, Roy couldn't decide whether to feel relieved or hurt. It wasn't so much that he _wanted_ to be involved (he didn't,) moreso, it was that he didn't want to be written off.

 _"It was an_ accident _," he repeated for what seemed like the fifth time once the Khandaqi nurse had left. "I thought it was water and wasn't paying attention."_

 _He struggled to sit up on the (ridiculously squishy) hospital bed so he could carry on the conversation like an adult._

 _Joey leaned forward in his chair, resting his elbows on his knees._

 _"Roy, I_ lied _to the personnel here," he said. "I didn't leave any paint thinner out. The only way you could've swallowed any is if you'd gotten it straight from the_ clearly labeled _bottle yourself. You can't do this to me."_

 _Roy wanted to disappear under the stupid, thin blanket. It_ had _been an accident, no matter the evidence to the contrary. He'd only been looking to make the pain stop; to get buzzed, or drunk, or high – but not to kill himself._

 _He sighed. "We didn't have any real booze handy and the memories… they wouldn't stop. I'm sorry."_

 _Joey looked at him with warmth in his green eyes and held out a hand, which Roy took without (too much) hesitation, and Joey gave his hand a reassuring squeeze._

 _"We're in this together, remember?" he said. It was not the same as an, "I trust you."_

"The way I see it," Jason continued rambling, "the convergence thing won't be on us for a while yet, so we can take a more chill approach to this bullshit and get back to the more down-to-earth stuff. Disemboweling rapists, helping Kori with her thing, that kind of stuff."

Kori cheered, her hair flaring a little brighter.

"Not for nothing," she said, "but I much prefer the 'down-to-Earth stuff' lately."

Admittedly, "down-to-earth" didn't sound terrible.

"Now," Jason announced, "speaking of 'down-to-earth,' let's fly this spaceship back to the secret island hideout and fight some pirates or something!"

Roy tried not to crack a smile.

"That's funny," Jason explained to him, "because it sounds like something out of a children's fantasy novel, but it's actually real life."

Roy held up the middle finger of his prosthetic arm.

"Don't patronize me, Birdman."

Jason smirked. "That might've been your worst nickname attempt yet."

"It'll come to me," Roy threatened, "and it will be devastating."

They were both thrown off their feet toward the rear of the cabin when Kori took off without warning.

"Oh!" Kori exclaimed in response to their groans of pain, "I am sorry! I thought you two were ready."

Whether that was pointed sarcasm or not, Roy couldn't tell.

"This bucket really wasn't made for more than one person, was it?" he asked.

Getting slammed into a wall hadn't been on Jason's agenda for the day, but when did life ever follow the agenda?

"Why are you still here?" Roy hissed in his face, holding his jacket prisoner in his clenched fists.

Jason raised an eyebrow. "Well, you see, my boat is stranded in Maine, which is on the opposite end of the country, and while I'm a great swimmer, I'm not _that_ –"

"I mean, what are your intentions?" Roy clarified through clenched teeth.

"My intentions?" Jason pretended to think for a minute. "Probably to kick some ass, take some names, be the change I wish to see in the world and all that."

" _WHY DID YOU SAVE ME?_ " Roy shouted. " _WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE?_ "

Jason shook loose of Roy's grip and began walking down the hallway, backwards, so he could still face Roy, but also distance himself enough to clean up the truth with a little of his trademark snark.

"I saved you because I owed Kori a favor in return for saving me," he said. "I'm still here because I don't have anywhere better to be. Not to mention things in Gotham have been a little NSFJ - Not Safe For Jason - ever since I broke out of Arkham. There are enough escaped Arkham patients in Gotham, I don't need the 'good guys' trying to chase me down too."

"Really?" Roy persisted, surprisingly _not_ taking the opportunity to throw Jason's "literal escaped mental patient" status back in his face. "Because, while I'm not clear on what happened in Maine, I'm pretty sure Kori could've handled it herself, yet when I woke up, there you were!"

Jason rolled his eyes and narrowly avoided running into the doorway he was trying to go through.

"Kori would've caused a bigger scene than needed. She's the knockdown, drag out, boss battle type."

It was Roy's turn to raise an eyebrow. "And you're not that dramatic?"

Rude.

"Look, if you think I'm waiting for an opportunity to give you the same chat I gave baby sis, that's not what this is. You already know how hopeless the 'light side' approach is. I just genuinely have nothing better to do."

 _And also, I really do care,_ he didn't say.

"Nothing makes sense anymore," Roy muttered.

"Things used to make sense?"

Roy clenched his fists, but cracked a slight smile. "Get back here so I can deck you."

Instead, Jason ran.

He hurled himself into the chair in front of Kori's computer console and shouted over his shoulder, "You can't deck a guy while he's on monitor duty!"

"Sure you can!" Roy shouted back as he raced into the room. "How do you think I lost my arm?"

Jason sucked in a breath and was half sincere when he said, "Ooh, ouch."

The half-insincere part of him was busy pulling up headlines. Nothing seemed relevant, until his own name jumped out at him.

" _WHITE VS. RED_ ," was the main headline, followed by the subheading, " _China White issues a challenge to the Red Hood"_

Jason banged his face on the desk. This was not a great development.

He clicked on the headline, which led to a video. Because of course it wasn't something he could just read. It had to be Cat Grant in front of a camera, taking her own sweet time. He drummed his fingers on the desk as he hit play.

" _After sustaining multiple gunshot wounds in a shootout in Japan, notorious drug lord Chien Na Wei, better known as China White, was transferred to Gotham General Hospital,"_ Cat was saying. " _Early sources indicated that Gotham was likely chosen due to its distance from Star City – home of White's longtime foe, Green Arrow – but a recent video message by White's personnel would indicate that Gotham was also a strategic choice due to the city being the base of operations for the vigilante known as the Red Hood. Stay tuned, we'll have that footage for you right after this message from our sponsor!_ "

The ad filter cut out whatever "message" the channel's sponsors had, and the studio camera footage cut to cellphone camera footage of Wei sitting serenely in a hospital bed, flanked by her grunts and the remains of dead security guards.

 _"Hi,"_ she began. _"I'm on a lot of painkillers right now, but just know that I am dead serious when I say that in twenty-four hours, I am going to burn this place to the ground, starting with the pediatric ward, if the Red Hood doesn't show his pathetic face for a rematch. And if anyone else shows up, even the goddamn Batman himself, the entire building will explode. This is between the two of us. Come defend your city, Red Cockroach. I'm waiting."_

The cellphone footage ended there and switched back to Cat Grant, still as poised as if she was reporting on a minor traffic delay.

 _"More on this story as it develops! I'm Cat Grant, and this is_ -"

Jason closed the video, cutting off the rest of her spiel. This was beyond bad. She was right, he should've killed her.

Roy came up behind him, eyes fixed on the screen.

"This one," he said, "I'm all in for."

Jason opened his mouth to ask what changed Roy's mind, but the pieces fell into place on their own. Wei was an opioid manufacturer and dealer who usually fought Green Arrow when she failed to evade confrontations completely. The first time Green Arrow left Star City for a significant time, drug traffic spiked higher than ever before, Green Arrow's teenage sidekick was left as the first line of defense, and, being a kid, the kid got in too deep. It was the original cautionary tale told to keep good little sidekicks everywhere in line.

"She was the first one to make it personal, wasn't she?" Jason asked. "The first face you ever put on what you were fighting against."

"I guess so," Roy said, shrugging. "Deep, profound reasoning or not, I just wanna kick her ass."

 **A/N:**

 **Shoutout to MissGeek! I love reading your comments!** **This chapter was actually earlier than I thought it would be! I was planning to do some more moving, but a coolant hose exploded in my car right before I was going to leave! So I didn't go anywhere, and I'll be hauling a carload of my crap around until next weekend! But the car was fixed pretty easy, so At Least There's That.  
-Foreshadowing? Haven't decided yet.  
-The Essence is 1000 years old and 2000% Done.  
-In my opinion, Jason could be a good leader if he wanted to be. He's certainly not a follower.  
-I think in the original comics, Siaru was supposed to be an immortal who only looks like a child, but like, why? For what purpose? How? Screw that. My take is that children are trained as Archivists because one, sending kids into battle is dumb, and two, children are less likely to have the dangerous ambitions adults have and would have more respect for the information they guard. They would be less likely to misuse the archived information for personal gain. And when they start to come of age, they train their replacement, then take up battle training with the rest of the adults.  
-Both of the dudes have definitely seen Top Gun. Convince me otherwise.  
-Why fight dragons when you can friend dragons?  
-Kori's memory is pulled pretty much straight from canon, but this time from her point of view.  
-"She's too mean to die," is one of my favorite Dad-isms and I use it everywhere.  
-The "ghosts" are really more like remixed memories. The longer they've been dead, the less they can interact with their surroundings, but they still serve as good recordings of knowledge.  
-Foreshadowing!  
-The movie referenced in Jason's memory is Stardust (2007) and is one of the greatest movies ever made. I'm gonna say Jason is about ten or eleven in the flashback, so it's from before he became Robin and he is very small.  
-Roy's memory is pulled straight from Titans (2008) #19! Lian is too cute.  
-FORESHADOWING!  
-The hospital flashback is one I made up, and for those of you who aren't from the Midwestern United States, where there is Nothing But Corn, teenagers supposedly will drink lacquer thinner (or, more commonly, lighter fluid) in lieu of alcohol. I say supposedly because I've never met anyone dumb or desperate enough to try it, but I'm guessing it would land you in the hospital. But hey, lacquer thinner and Southern Comfort smell exactly the same, and when one is shacking up with an artist, the former is probably more readily available than the latter.  
-"See, That's Funny Because..." is an excellent game that might also get you punched in the face.  
-I really love Calista Flockhart's portrayal of Cat Grant in the first season of Supergirl, but endearingly oblivious comics!Cat is fun as well. I genuinely don't know why.  
-China White has only ever appeared in Green Arrow: Year One as far as I know, but she has potential, so I will be giving her somewhat of a backstory eventually!  
That's all for now! I haven't decided whether I'll post another bio between now and the next chapter, but you can read Crux's bio on the blog! Thanks for reading, and please leave me comments! Please. My wife is pregnant.**


	5. Boom! Goes the Dynamite

There was something incredibly satisfying about bringing one's enemies to their knees without even lifting a finger. Chien Nawen was not above getting her hands dirty, and dealing the fatal blow could be almost relaxing at times, but running an empire couldn't be done without a little delegation, and there were better things to do than chase down every loose cannon. So when the Red Hood was escorted into her room, hands cuffed behind him and flanked by four of her best, Nawen felt a small thrill of pride. She still had it.

Despite the painkillers she was on, every large amount of movement still hurt like a motherfucker, so she slid out of bed carefully and padded over to the rival gangster.

"I'm here," he said. "Should I have brought flowers or a card? I decided not to since I was in a hurry, but I see how that could be interpreted as rude."

"Shut up," she snapped. "I am beyond tired of you, and of your inane quipping, and how you honestly seem to think you can walk both sides of the line that separates what I do from what you and all the other hero-types do."

"All you had to do was not sell to kids, and we could've stayed out of one another's way," he replied, voice low despite the modulation that kept it mostly even.

"As if I care what my dealers do," she said, almost amused. "It's all about the money. It doesn't matter where it comes from."

She reached up and grabbed the back of his helmet, looking for the catch. He tried to pull away, but two of his "escorts" held him there.

"What are you doing?" he asked, struggling uselessly. He was like an insect under a microscope, yet somehow more pathetic.

Nawen grit her teeth.

"Taking off this stupid helmet of yours before I kill you. I want to watch the stupid, smug expression bleed from your face as you die."

Finally, she figured out how to undo the helmet and yanked it off. Waves of copper hair tumbled forth, and green eyes met her own.

"You," she growled.

"Looks like you're not the only one who should've been killed when the opportunity presented itself," Roy Harper replied, standing a little straighter, shoulders thrown back, jaw set.

 _He had come to her with everything he had left and thrown it at her feet, begging her for an overdose. She, in return, laughed in his face. In that moment, he was not an enemy she'd been battling since he was practically a child. There was no point in killing the scarred, broken man in front of her. Not when he wanted to die. Because that meant killing him would be a kindness, and all she had was poison._

 _So she kept his money and sent him away with barely a taste, just enough to ignite the hunger again and let it consume him. And then she stopped caring. Whatever happened to him would happen, and it would have no effect on her._

Now, as she stared at the brat wearing the Red Hood's uniform in front of her, she felt some regret at not having helped him kill himself. But, she thought, she really hadn't assumed he'd still be mad about that.

"So," she asked, "was this," she gestured at him, "your idea, or did Jason Todd send you to die in his place while he, no doubt, tried to get rid of the bombs or get the poor, innocent people to safety?"

"It was my idea," Harper replied without hesitation. "I heard it was you and I couldn't stay away."

"Well, I guess everyone's going to die, then! But I'll start with you. Ordinarily, I'd handcuff you to something and then blow the place, but I'll be nice and kill you quickly. So get down on your knees. And someone give me a gun."

One of her men handed her his pistol while the two who'd been restraining Harper tried to force him to kneel, but he resisted instead. Something near him was whirring, and then his handcuffs broke loose in a flash of light that shoved the other men away from him.

"Actually," he said, bringing his arms forward, the one that had been missing now replaced by a shiny prosthetic with a miniature cannon rising from it, the broken handcuffs hanging off the other wrist, "for the first time in a while, I wasn't planning on dying."

The room erupted into shouting as Wei's men pulled their guns, and the two barrels of Harper's arm cannon swiveled in opposite directions, picking off anyone who pulled his weapon too slowly. This happened to be all of them, leaving Nawen and her opponent in a standoff.

"Bloodthirsty!" she exclaimed with an impressed smile. "You've grown up."

"And way too fast," he agreed, both barrels of his gun pointed at her.

"Yet you still have so much more to do," she replies.

She can tell he falls for the feint when she pretends to raise her gun because he fires the split second after she drops her weapon, the realization dawning on his face after the blast has already left his own. She doesn't feel the gunshot that ends her life.

* * *

Had she _wanted_ him to kill her?

Roy ran to where Jason's helmet had been discarded and scooped it up, running for the door while yelling into the earpiece.

"Jason! I think we've been set up! She went down way too easy!"

" _Then get out of there!"_ came Jason's reply. _"We almost have the place evacuated, we'll meet you outside!"_

Roy felt the old, familiar grim determination set in as he replied, "Almost isn't good enough."

Then he ran in the opposite direction of the exit, tossing Jason's helmet – Jason still yelling orders – behind him.

Which was how he found the nurse who was crouched in the supply closet, desperately clutching her phone to her ear, having a hurried, whispered conversation with the person on the other end. When their eyes met, there was resignation in the woman's eyes; she had known she'd be found eventually. She went completely silent, the voice on the other end of the line shouting, _"Mom! Mom?"_

Roy crouched down to her level and slowly held out his hand.

"It's okay," he said, hoping his voice sounded soothing. "I'm here to get you out. My name is Roy."

"Crystal," the woman replied, taking his hand. They rose to their feet together; Roy wasn't sure who was supporting who more. "Why are you in handcuffs?"

Roy looked down, having almost forgotten about the broken restraints still dangling from his left wrist.

"I'm kinda the guy they were after," he replied, pulling Crystal along as he strode down the hallway toward the stairs.

"Oh God," Crystal said.

* * *

The explosion was not actually huge. It definitely demolished the hospital, but it wasn't the kind of explosion that devastated everything in a however-many-mile radius. Which was good, since Jason had barely made it to the parking lot before the whole thing went. As it was, he was flung forward by the blast.

Ears ringing, helmet giving him _major_ feedback, he didn't hear Kori ask if he was okay so much as read it on her face.

"I'm actually great," he hoped he was saying out loud. "I'm just going to lie here for a moment because I want to."

Which really would've been nice, if Batgirl hadn't suddenly loomed over him, blotting out the sun, but also looking pissed.

"Can you _please_ tell me why the hospital just exploded?" she demanded, hands on her hips.

He held up one finger in a "give-me-a-moment" gesture, then passed out.

* * *

Kori raced through the crowd of displaced hospital staff and patrons, desperate to find Roy. Had he done something stupid? Disguising himself as Jason and going to confront China White on his own definitely could be considered stupid, but had it been stupid enough to cost him his life?

"Kori!" his voice yelled just then. "Over here!"

She saw a red, metal arm waving over the crowd and felt a surge of relief. Apparently, it hadn't been that stupid.

She raced into his arms, enveloping him in a hug that swept him off his feet. She also couldn't resist kissing him on the forehead. For his part, he rubbed her back soothingly, letting her reassure herself he was there.

"You are crazy," she whispered into his hair.

"It's a crazy I'm learning to live with," he replied.

Kori unwrapped herself from around Roy and held him at arm's length, studying him. Jason's costume fit him surprisingly well, and he looked unhurt, except for the broken pair of handcuffs still locked around one wrist.

She grabbed his hand and looked closer at his wrist.

"Would you like me to -" she started to say.

"Yes please," he answered before she could finish.

She pinched the metal between her fingers, pulling it as far from Roy's fragile, human skin as she could, then melted it until she could pry it off and toss the cuffs on the ground.

When she looked up, she saw that Roy had been biting his lip and she looked back at his wrist. Despite her best efforts, his skin was burnt, likely to the point where it would blister.

"You should have said something," she chastised him.

"I've had worse," he said, then looked at his other arm. "Duh."

"It's not about worse," Kori said. "It's about _this time_."

Roy glanced at the smoldering ruins of the hospital.

"Too bad we can't go to the Emergency Room, huh?"

Just then, a very annoyed-looking Batgirl marched up to them, dragging Jason by the feet.

"Where do you want this?" she asked.

"Please put him down," Kori replied, taking in the appearance of the smaller girl. She had changed her costume again. The suit was still black with a yellow bat on the chest, but now it had bars of purple running down the sides, and the inside of the cape was purple as well. Her mask had almost completely changed; for one thing, this one had eyeholes that exposed her light brown eyes. For another, this mask didn't cover the lower half of her face, and Kori could see every quirk of the girl's full lips, the blonde hair that curled in every direction, and the dark skin beneath the costume. Kori realized this probably wasn't the same Batgirl that Timothy had introduced her to. Was she supposed to know this one?

Batgirl dropped Jason's feet with a flourish. Her heart didn't seem fully into whatever she was doing, however. She seemed to be looking through the crowd for someone.

"Uh, look," she began, "have you seen a nurse out here, about yeah big," she held up a hand to indicate a height slightly shorter than her own, "dark skin, natural black hair a little over shoulder length, probably wearing purple scrubs?"

Roy's eyebrows raised in recognition. "Nurse Crystal? She's just over there," he pointed to a group of nurses checking on the kids Kori and Jason had pulled from the building. "Why?"

Batgirl shrugged. "No particular reason, she just treated me once, and I wanted to check up on her," she lied.

Jason groaned loudly behind her.

"Oh good, the head case is awake."

"What the absolute fuck?" he groaned.

Roy barked a laugh. "And _you_ were worried about _me_ overdoing it!"

"You wanna lose another arm?" Jason growled.

"Boys!" Kori shouted. "Shut up!"

It was rude, but it was the only thing she could think of at the time.

"Thank you," Batgirl said. "This jackassery notwithstanding, you guys have an okay 'Gettin' Shit Done' record, and since you're here anyway,"

"Oh no," Jason mumbled.

"There's some major shit needing done," Batgirl finished, glaring at Jason.

"Okay, fine," he sighed. "What kind of electric-mutant-skeleton-pirate invasion does B need help with now?"

"Literal electric-mutant-skeleton-pirates," Batgirl said.

Kori felt her interest piqued.

"Really?" she asked.

"No. They're zombie assassins who are being sent after prominent members of Gotham society, and it's all hands on deck."

"By 'zombie assassins,' do you mean zombies that assassinate people, or people who specifically assassinate zombies?" Roy asked.

Kori was curious to hear the answer, but Batgirl just glared at Roy. "I'm not even going to dignify that with a response."

She looked back at Jason. "For one night only, pretty much anything goes. Even rogues like Harley, Ivy, Eddie, and Harvey are allowed to slide, providing they help or get out of the way. I'm not gonna beg, but basically, help us, or you suck."

"Tempting," Jason said, looking up at her. If his helmet could frown, Kori was sure it would be doing so now. "I think we're gonna go with 'get out of the way,' right?"

He looked at Roy and Kori. Kori exchanged a glance with Roy, then shrugged.

"Uh-oh," Jason said.

"We _are_ already here," Kori mused.

"And if we leave now, then by tonight, we could be _not_ here," Roy protested.

"Let's vote on it," Jason suggested. "Raise your hand if you want to stay here and play human shield for some socialite or other, then probably get your ass chewed by Batman?"

Kori pointedly raised her hand.

"And if you would rather do literally anything but that?"

He and Roy both raised their hands, while Kori lowered hers.

"Well?" he said.

"Well," Kori replied, drawing herself up to full height and doing her best to look very princess-y, "since I'm your ride, and I am staying here, my vote is worth more than yours." She turned to Batgirl and smiled. "We would love to stay and help fight your zombie-pirate-whatever-you-said incursion."

Batgirl grinned while the boys both groaned, and Roy sank to the ground beside Jason.

"You are such a badass!" Batgirl squealed. "Fistbump?"

She held up one fist, and Kori politely tapped it with hers.

* * *

So now they were perched on a roof, across from an office where Mr. Freeze was not doing anything illegal yet.

Jason kicked his heels against the side of the building.

"Why would they even want to go after Mr. Freeze?" he groaned.

" _Don't know_ ," Stephanie replied, voice crackling through his earpiece.

"Where did B even get this intel?"

" _Also don't know_." She was being way too casual about the whole thing.

"Are you sure this isn't some wild goose chase designed to get us to sit on our hands for a night and possibly get us nabbed by the authorities?"

 _"God, I'd pay to watch you fight the cops,_ " Steph replied. _"But if Alfred wasted my time by nominating me for the job of Fugitive Wrangler without telling me, then I don't care how old he is, I'm gonna fight him."_

"Wait, Alfred put you up to this?"

 _"Do you honestly think B would ask for your help? He won't even ask for my help unless at least two people he actually takes seriously lean on him!_ "

Jason sighed.

"Guys," he said to his almost-friends, "we may have to take this seriously."

"From the one side of the conversation we could hear, I kinda got that," Roy said, while an affronted Kori replied, "I was _always_ taking this seriously!"

" _Oh, sh-"_ Stephanie was cut off in a hiss of static, followed by the sounds of something between a scuffle and a full-on skirmish.

"Batgirl?" Jason said, pressing his earpiece closer to his ear, straining to hear a reply. "Steph?"

He bolted to his feet, running across the rooftop toward the fire escape until Kori caught his arm.

"Wait, Jason," she said. "Look."

Reluctantly, Jason turned around. As he looked for what had caught Kori's attention, the hair on the back of his neck stood up. The shadows in the office weren't moving the way they were supposed to. Instead, they were all leaking toward the desk, converging on Mr. Freeze as he sat in front of a computer, absorbed in whatever he was doing.

"This is what we're here for, I'd guess," Jason said. "Let's go!"

* * *

It had been a while since he'd crashed through a window, but that made it all the more satisfying.

Until the guy they'd been sent to protect shouted, "Why? This is a rental! What do you want?"

"We'll pay for it after we save your life!" Jason shouted back, loading a magazine into one of his guns.

"From what?"

There was a hissing sound in reply, then a large, black shape dropped on top of Jason, sending him sprawling across the cheap carpet.

"I'd guess from that," Roy observed, powering up his arm's blaster.

"What the hell do you want?" he demanded of the black shape. But the shape did not reply. Instead, it unfolded into a humanoid figure covered head to toe in loose, black fabric. It wore goggles that mimicked the eyes and beak of an owl and stared blankly into Roy's soul. Brassy weapons hung from a belt and a pair of bandoliers slung across its torso.

The blob's hooded face turned, and it raised one taloned finger to point past Roy at Mr. Freeze.

"You've stolen something from us," it said. Somehow, its voice was a hiss and a rattle at the same time. Roy felt as though he were being frozen from the inside out, and he was pretty sure it wasn't the ice-themed supervillain's doing.

A blast of violet fire knocked the thing through the wall.

"Maybe you should ask for it nicely!" Kori retorted, hands and hair physically blazing, eyes metaphorically blazing.

The thing hissed louder. It had recovered in record time, climbing back into the room almost as soon as it landed.

"Whatever you are looking for, I assure you I'm not giving it to you," Mr. Freeze snapped.

"Then we will take it!" The thing rattle-hissed.

Roy blasted it without another thought. It stumbled back a few paces, then Jason rose from the floor and fired a few rounds from his own gun at it.

"Are you seriously using the royal 'we?'" he asked. "What century is this?"

"Time is irrelevant to us," the thing replied, flipping and dodging around bullets, ion blasts, and starbolts, "as are you."

In nearly a single, fluid motion, it caught Jason by the throat and flung him through the broken window. Kori spun and dove after him. Then a desk drawer slammed.

"Enough of this!" Mr. Freeze said, brandishing a gun that definitely didn't shoot bullets.

The blast from the gun seemed to catch the thing by surprise, because it was encased in ice before it even turned its head. But when it did, it seemed strangely intrigued.

"There," it said, cocking its head. "You do have it."

The ice began to crack; the thing broke through it as though it was little more than a few spiderwebs.

Roy blasted it. He _knew_ he heard flesh sizzling, but the thing barely seemed to feel pain.

"Is that all you have?" Mr. Freeze snapped at him. "Because you are clearly not helping!"

Roy looked around; there had to be something he could use, even just to buy time.

Another ice blast hit the thing. Roy grabbed one of the larger pieces of broken glass from the floor and hurled it like a flying disk at the momentarily slowed creature. It ripped a gash in the cowl the thing wore, revealing graying skin with dark veins crisscrossing it along a sharp jawbone. The thing turned toward Roy and hissed. Roy got it directly in the mouth with the next piece of glass.

And then everything went shitward.

Kori dove back through the window carrying Jason and accidentally bumped Roy upon landing. An ion blast meant for the creature took out the desk lamp instead, and, since Murphy's Law was in full effect, the desk lamp had been the only light source, and its destruction plunged the room into darkness. The soft glowing coming from Kori, the computer, and from Mr. Freeze's suit were next to insignificant in the inky Gotham night.

Mr. Freeze muttered something in German that was probably a swear.

* * *

Even in the darkness, Kori could clearly see the zombie assassin use the distraction she had unwittingly created to launch itself across the desk and tackle Victor Fries. She was fully ready to blast it, but stopped. It would be nearly impossible to hit it without also hitting Fries, and the Sun's energy would not be beneficial to one who needed the cold for his survival.

But Jason had it covered. As the assassin raised its claws to strike, Jason fired two bullets right between its shoulder blades. The thing let out an awful screech and turned. Dark, congealing blood oozed from the cuts in its mouth. Fries raised his gun, and the thing began to laugh.

"And what, please tell, is so funny?" Fries asked.

"We thank you for your cooperation," it said, its voice somehow even more horrifying than before.

Its arm shot out and closed around Fries' wrist while it spun around and landed a kick in his solar plexus, sending him crashing through the wall. The ice gun Fries had been carrying was now in the assassin's hand.

Jason and Kori both opened fire. Even as it burned, the thing lurched toward the window, chuckling. A bullet through the head silenced it for good, but also sent it plummeting through the window to the street below.

"Did we win?' Roy asked. "I can't see a fucking thing."

"I don't think so," Kori replied.

A non-evil hissing sound caught her ear.

"Mr. Fries?" she called toward the sound. "Are you alright?"

Silence.

Jason bolted toward the downed scientist first, but Kori was not far behind.

"Roy!" Jason shouted. "Call 911!"

"I don't have a phone!" Roy shouted back.

"There's one on the desk!"

"Did you miss the part where I can't see?"

The crack in Fries' body armor began hissing more intensely.

"I will do it!" Kori interjected. She grabbed the phone and her fingers flew over the keypad. As the phone dialed, she picked up something she probably was not meant to hear.

"Stay with us, Frosty," Jason was murmuring. "Think about Nora. Nora needs you; stay with us."

Fries spoke for the first time since he'd been thrown through a wall.

"How do you know of Nora?"

"Shhh."

 **A/N:**

 **Shoutout to my wonderful readers! I appreciate your concern for my pregnant wife, but I am not actually married and was, in fact, joking! But I love the enthusiasm! I would give you all a squadrillion heart emojis if I were that kind of person!**

 **-I needed a costume swap in a way similar to the way I need air to breathe, and the perfect opportunity presented itself to me far sooner than I imagined it would! Hell yeah!  
-I hope I didn't imply Jason wouldn't try to save everyone. "Almost isn't good enough" was more about him trying to get Roy out of harm's way and Roy deciding to do his own thing.  
-IT'S STEPHANIE BROWN, BITCH!  
-I remember very very little about the entire Court of Owls storyline, I'm mostly just bullshitting as I go, like I do in class when I haven't done the reading! But I'm pretty sure Mr. Freeze was there, so!  
-I made terrible concept art for this chapter. I'm a meme engine.  
Thanks everyone for reading and leaving comments! I love you with the fire of a Tamaranean! Next is not a beach episode, but the gang IS taking a much-needed vacation! Ta!**


	6. Space Jam

**A/N: (But wait! I'm not dead! Shia surprise!)**

 **It feels like years since the last update, so what have I been up to in the interim? I: dropped out of a class for the first time ever (then found out that class didn't fulfill the requirement I was taking it for anyway,) performed in a standup comedy show for the first time ever, took care of a herd of chickens (and 2 lesbian ducks) for the first time ever, worked on the tech crew of a musical that literally changed my life for the first time ever, came out to my parents by introducing them to the ethereal being I call my girlfriend for the first time ever, and turned 21 for the first time ever. Along with some other stuff. I may have given myself food poisoning again somewhere in there.**

"This is officially the weirdest date I've ever been on."

All things considered, Isabel Ardila was taking unexpectedly getting beamed into space pretty well. It was definitely the most interesting part of the date so far.

"Believe me, I'm a little freaked out, too," her date replied. But he, at least, seemed to know what he was doing. He'd pulled a handgun out of his waistband the second things had started to go weird and hadn't put it down since.

"Just follow my lead," the gorgeous redheaded woman with skin like a beach at sunset replied, her nose and eyebrows scrunched in determination. "Everything will be fine."

* * *

 _A vacation had been much needed. A vacation in Barcelona was maybe not needed, but so worth it. Jason had decided to call Isabel after all, since he hadn't actually thought she'd be able to come. But now she was sitting across from him, splitting dessert and talking about literature._

 _"I've always wanted to go to France just to see if I can find all the places from Dumas' books," she was saying. "They should do an Alexadre Dumas tour! Do they already do one? Because if not, they need to."_

 _Jason laughed. He was enjoying himself more than he thought he would. "Right? I would be all for that. I wanted to be Aramis when I was a kid. Go on crazy adventures until I can't stand it anymore, then become a priest? Sounded perfect."_

 _That was true, for the record. Aramis had a great thing going._

 _Isabel smiled._

 _"And now what is it you do?" she asked._

 _Jason's mind went blank. He'd prepared for this, dammit! But now he had no idea what he'd prepared._

 _"I work for Wayne Enterprises," he heard himself say._

Well, shit.

 _"Cool! What kind of stuff do you do there?"_

It's a date, not an interrogation, _he reminded himself._ Calm down. Unless it actually is an interrogation and she works for the FBI or something and is trying to get you to say you are who you actually are instead of who you're currently saying you are so she can arrest you.

 _"I test computers at Wayne Tech," he said._

 _"That sounds awesome!" Isabel replied. "Maybe not as cool as adventurer-priest, but maybe that's its own kind of adventure!"_

 _Jason twirled his fork between his fingers._

 _"Yeah," he said, "I guess so. What about you? Was flight attendant your lifelong dream made real?"_

 _Isabel laughed._

 _"Nah. I wanted to be an actress at first, be the next Princess Leia or something, but then I realized I liked the action more than the acting. So I set my sights on a career as a stuntwoman, but I also wanted to learn how to fly. The flight attendant gig is just a thing I do for money while I'm working on getting my wings."_

 _Now_ that _was cool._

 _"That's awesome!" Jason replied. "Good luck!"_

 _Isabel blushed. "Thanks! C'mon, let's sightsee! We can eat cheesecake anywhere, but we can't see Barcelona anywhere but Barcelona!"_

 _They hurried out of the café to the street as if everything worth seeing would vanish if they weren't prompt._

 _Lights flashed in the sky._

 _"Was that lightning?" Isabel asked, stopping short. "It's not even cloudy! Unfair!"_

 _Jason looked closer. The lights flickered in and out, but they were definitely descending toward…_

 _"The hotel!" Jason exclaimed._

 _He didn't think twice, he just unholstered his gun and ran toward the incoming weird thing._

 _"Dude, what?" Isabel spluttered. "You're just gonna?"_

 _"Yup!"_

 _Isabel ran after him._

 _"Well, if this is what we're doing now, I've got a can of mace and a decent right hook!" she said._

 _She was adorable, but probably doomed._

 _"Look." Jason stopped short, catching Isabel before she could barrel into him. "I really don't have time to explain, but you shouldn't come with me. I have no idea what's up there, but it's not exactly first date activity."_

 _Isabel raised an eyebrow. "Shouldn't. Will anyway."_

 _"Please, Isabel!" It was odd hearing himself beg. "This is seriously dangerous!"_

 _"Who are you? Superman?" She gasped slightly. "Ohmigod,_ are _you Superman?"_

 _"Definitely not. I can't have this conversation right now."_

 _He took off again, and Isabel was right behind him the whole way._

 _"Yeah, you probably aren't old enough to be Superman anyway. He has, like, kids and stuff. Are you Superboy?"_

 _"I am not related to Superman!"_

 _When he got to the hotel, Jason bolted past the elevator to the stairs. His feet barely touched the carpet as he ran; he was too focused on saving his… was there a word for people you occasionally beat other people up with, then crashed on the couch of, that didn't have the uncomfortable implications that "friends" or "team" had?_

 _Jason kicked in the door to the room, surprising Kori, Roy, and the pair of supermodel-looking aliens in matching armor Kori had just made coffee for._

 _"I thought you had a room key?" Kori asked._

 _"I thought you were being attacked!" Jason replied._

 _"I thought we were supposed to be relaxing," Roy mumbled._

 _"I thought you said this would be dangerous?" Isabel panted, having caught up surprisingly quickly._

 _"I thought we were only waiting on_ one _of your friends?" the unknown man asked Kori. He had long, strawberry-blonde hair and an eyepatch, and looked to be in his thirties._

 _"Well, clearly, everyone was wrong!" Jason snapped._

 _"I would not be so quick to rule out danger," the woman said. Her hair was hot pink, her skin and eyes were pure white, and she looked to be somewhere in her early forties. "The entire Vegan system is in trouble, and could be destroyed if we do not act. On top of that, we're missing a few of our own. So, we're coming to you," she turned to Kori, "rightful heiress to the throne of Tamaran. Will you help us?"_

* * *

"Everything will be fine," Kori reassured Jason and his date. Roy already had a "determined-to-be-through-with-this" look. "But first, you need proper attire."

The three humans exchanged glances, then stared at her. They were a bit of a mess. Roy was in pajamas, Jason was wearing a button-down shirt and jeans, and his date was in a sundress that had to be cold now that the Sun was no longer overhead.

"This is all we've got," Roy said after an extended pause.

"There is plenty of armor aboard the ship!" Kalista interjected. "I believe the Tamaranean armor would fit the best, though."

Kori glowed with appreciation for these Omega Men, a crew she hardly even knew, but who were fully prepared for whoever may join their ranks. "Thank you!"

"We aim to serve the true rulers of the Vegan alliance to the best of our abilities," Kalista replied proudly. "I can lead you to the armory whenever you would like."

"Now would be a good time," Kori said. "Judging from what you say, we have little time to waste."

"True enough." Kalista nodded. "Come along, then."

Kori threw a "come on!" look over her shoulder before following the woman.

"Wait a damn minute!" Jason's date interrupted. "Are we seriously supposed to put on armor? Like, for a war? I'm not prepared for that! Put me back on Earth! Right now!"

Kalista looked soulful. "Unfortunately, the teleportation beam needs to cool, or we run the risk of melting it and dying horrific deaths in the cold and unforgiving vacuum of space. We are also a considerable distance farther from Earth than we were when we arrived, which would require extensive recalibration. But none are required to fight! And we have all the equipment required for making smoothies!"

The Earth-woman looked like she was questioning her entire existence. Jason put an arm around her and gently rubbed her shoulders.

"We're going to be back home before you know it," he reassured her. "Kori's the best. She knows what she's doing."

The Earth-woman sighed.

"This armor had better be cool."

The armor was indeed cool. Tamaranean battle armor was of the same style and the same lilac metal as Kori's all-purpose armor, but nowhere near as light-duty. It had long sleeves and actual pants that layered seamlessly beneath the vambraces and boots Kori already wore, while the back had scrollwork that redistributed impact with the intention of reducing the sorts of injuries organized ranks of soldiers were more likely than individual warriors to sustain.

Each set of armor could adjust to fit the wearer perfectly. Roy's even allowed him to keep his metal arm exposed for better use of the blaster contained within it.

"I sincerely hope everyone is dressed in a manner they are comfortable being seen in, as we are nearing orbit and will need all hands, or whatever tactile appendages you have, on deck!" Kalista announced outside the armory door.

"We will be there in a moment!" Kori shouted back, then lowered her voice so only the people in the armory could hear her. "Despite her saying this is 'all hands on deck,' none of you need to help if you do not wish to. I want you to be safe."

"Yeah, no way," Roy replied. "Screw safety, there's people in trouble."

"He's right, _princesa,_ " Jason added. "Innocent lives deserve defending."

Jason's date stood up.

"Count me in, too," she said. "What's the point of going somewhere new if you don't go see the place?"

Kori nodded.

"Then I wholeheartedly thank each of you and urge you not to die."

* * *

The pain was unbearable.

Roy was lying in a pod of delightfully gray ooze that held him firmly in a spread-eagle position so he could be sliced into by space frogs with a collective IQ lower than the price of gas on a holiday weekend.

"You wanna tell us how to get through your princess' shields yet?" one of the frog dudes asked.

"Still don't know," Roy replied, trying to emphasize how little he cared what they did. Even if he had the info they were after, he'd die before giving it up. Not that their intent was killing him, but he could endure anything to protect Kori and the others.

The other space frog pushed a thin blade between two of Roy's ribs. Roy cried out, shattering any semblance of bravado he'd just projected. The moment the space frog removed its blade, the ooze trickled upward and began repairing the wound.

"You sure you don't know how to get around the shields?" the space frog asked.

"Pretty fucking positive!" Roy spat back.

One of the space frogs turned to the other. "You think it's telling the truth?"

The other shrugged. "Don't know how we'd tell, to be perfectly frank."

"You wanna rearrange its inside bits just for funsies, then?"

Roy struggled against the ooze. Nothing about that statement sounded good.

"Sounds good to me!" The second space frog sounded a bit more enthusiastic about that.

"Enough!" A new, far less idiotic voice interrupted.

Someone who looked an awful lot like Kori's evil sister had entered the room.

"We do _not_ have time for you two to play games!" she snapped. "If the Earth-thing refuses to talk, then it is _useless._ It is not a toy, it is not entertainment of any sort, it's just another piece of garbage. And what do we do with garbage?"

The space frogs looked less like warriors and more like preschoolers in that moment.

"Throw it in the incinerator," one of them recited.

"Throw it in the incinerator," Kori's Evil Sister repeated.

"Maybe, let's _not_ throw it in the incinerator?" Roy interjected, not thrilled at the idea of burning to death. "In this case, throwing it out the airlock would be fine, I don't think the Space EPA would mind."

The ooze flowed to cover his mouth.

"I was thinking, actually – " the other space frog started.

"That's new," Kori's Evil Sister muttered.

"Even if it _don't_ know how to get to your sister and her Omega Friends, maybe your sister could figure out how to get to _it_ ," the space frog finished.

"What?"

"If we left it somewhere she'd look, she'd find it, but also we'd find her, too, because we would be hiding out nearby waiting for her! And then you could toast her! With your fire magic, not like, with drunk-making beverages. Should I draw some pictures?"

"No," she sighed, "I understand the concept of bait. I just have no forthcoming idea how _you_ understand it."

"I surprise even myself sometimes!" Roy hadn't known an amphibian could look proud, yet somehow this one did.

Kori's Evil Sister sighed.

"My idiot sister does care for these," she gestured toward Roy with disgust, " _things_. If we dump this one on the surface of the planet, we essentially have a guarantee that she will come for him."

 _Big mistake sister_. Nobody could stop a Kori on a mission.

* * *

The planet below them was dying. Not that Isabel was an expert on Tamaran, but it didn't look good. The atmosphere was choked by sluggish, gray-brown clouds, and what land could be seen appeared dry and brown.

The princess - who's name sounded something like Cory - seemed absolutely crushed as she looked out over the planet. Before Isabel could help herself, she touched the princess' arm.

"Tell me how it really looks," she asked. Not, _"tell me how it used to be,"_ or, _"tell me how you remember it."_ Those were… posthumous. This planet wasn't dead yet and its savior needed hope.

Princess Cory covered Isabel's hand with her own.

"It looks a bit like Earth's Pacific Islands," she said, "or the Caribbean. But even more beautiful. We built our population centers among the trees, curving walls around the oldest of them, because they had been there longer than we could know and deserved to live to their full potential.

"Beaches of soft cobalt or amber sand stretched for miles, the oceans as pure as bathwater. They were the best places for festivals! Everyone danced and sang and shared meals, there were combat demonstrations, and when the sun went down, performers would dance above the waves, where they were reflected in the dancing water. You should see the way we glow when we feel passionate about something; no other species can compare."

She was glowing a little already.

"That sounds wonderful," Isabel sighed, enchanted by this glowing woman from a planet Isabel never even dreamed existed. "Can all of your people fly?"

The princess nodded. "Flying is, for us, as natural as walking. There are always some who cannot, but on average, yes, all of my people can fly. Except, my sister, she never could. She was sick, and…" A dark look passed over her face as she talked about her sister.

"Is something wrong?" Isabel asked.

" _She_ is wrong," Princess Cory replied. "She is the one doing this! Her revenge for some perceived slight only she knows the reason for. We all loved her! But I don't think she ever learned how to love."

"Then that's how we know we'll win," Isabel said. "We're fighting with love, and love always wins!"

Isabel didn't know Princess Cory very well, but that sounded like the right thing to say to her.

"While on the topic of love!" a yellow alien that looked like a spaghetti noodle with anxiety interrupted, hustling up to where the two women stood, "We were able to track down your missing human's bio-signature-whatsit! And unless we read it wrong, he's still very much alive!"

Princess Cory threw her arms around the spaghetti-looking alien, laughing with relief. The spaghetti-looking alien looked a little sick.

Isabel felt herself laughing a little as well. The way the princess had screamed in anguish as the man with the prosthetic arm was pulled through a rapidly disappearing portal after he'd noticed it opening and pushed the princess out of the way had been… was there a word beyond heartbreaking? Soulbreaking? It physically hurt. And now it was the opposite, as if she were filled with light and pure, liquid joy.

Princess Cory clapped her hands together, glowing like a living flame.

"Let's fight for love!"

* * *

Jason hadn't stopped rubbing his thumb over the grip of his gun since they'd made landfall on Tamaran, and he didn't plan to stop any time soon. He didn't like offworld adventuring. And the air on this world was filled with an unknown virus that choked flora and fauna alike. He and the rest of Kori's crew had helmets with filters and air tanks, but if the disease didn't just spread via inhalation, they were screwed no matter what.

"She will have made the palace her ground zero," Kori said. "But what to look for, we will likely not know until we see. Luckily, once we destroy it, the plant life that survives can clean the air and water of the disease."

So now they stood in the entrance hall of the palace, looking like a group of teenagers trying to decide who should go into a haunted house first. Except more than half of the "teenagers" were various species of alien, and everyone in the group had some kind of weapon. But those seemed like minor details.

"Where should we look?" Jason asked.

Kori rubbed her temples. "Somewhere open. Somewhere she could reach as many cardinal directions as possible. Somewhere like…" Her eyes lit up. "The throne room!"

She shot forward, not bothering to walk, leaving a blaze of fire behind her.

Jason grabbed Isabel's hand. "Let's go!"

The non-flight-enabled members of the crew ran after Kori, her fiery wake an easy to follow beacon. As was the scream she let loose when she reached the throne room.

Jason raised his gun while Isabel fumbled with the electro-spear Kori had given her.

"Which way do I point this thing?" Isabel whisper-shouted. The moment did not feel like one for normal speaking volume.

"That way," Primus corrected, turning it over in her hand.

But the source of Kori's scream, as it turned out, was not one that required weaponry. She had dropped to the floor next to Roy, who was bruised, bloody, naked from the waist up, and barely conscious. His wrists had been bound to his ankles, and Kori was trying to untie him while holding him close at the same time.

Kori looked up at where everyone stood, frozen.

"Help me," she pleaded. That was all the defrosting it took. Jason dropped his gun and rushed to her side, Isabel not far behind.

Jason looked at the knots in front of him.

"I could undo these," he decided, "but it would take time, and we need to get his circulation going as soon as possible. Who the hell one of you has a knife?"

"Was that supposed to be incomprehensible?" a half-feline woman asked.

" _KNIFE!_ " Jason, Kori, and Isabel shouted in unison.

The same woman slid a dagger across the floor toward them, which Isabel stopped with her foot, then picked up and handed to Jason.

Jason sawed through the knots as quickly but carefully as he could. As soon as Roy's limbs were free of one another, Kori helped Jason lower him onto his back, arms and legs outstretched.

"What did she do to him?" Jason asked, not fully expecting Kori to know.

"She must have exposed him to the virus," Kori mused, gently tracing her fingers along Roy's cheek. "Everyone, whatever you do, keep your helmets on! This illness doesn't only affect Tamaraneans!"

"He can't stay here," Isabel said. "It stands to reason that the longer he breathes the air, the worse he'll get."

"You're right," Kori replied. "We have to take him back to ship for medical attention."

"It makes no tactical sense for all of us to backtrack," the feline woman interjected. "I'll take him for you. You kill that crazy dictator!"

Kori's voice nearly cracked as she said, "Thank you, Felicity. Komand'r will not get away from me this time. Her reign of terror ends now!"

"Wait," Roy interrupted, voice weak but sure. "He's… still… here."

"Who is? Roy?" Kori looked like she didn't know where to look. So Jason looked for her. The room was large and open, nearly all windows and no roof. Two large but simple thrones sat at the top of four stone steps that stretched the width of the room, with a small stream flowing between them, and plants growing through the windows behind them.

Something was very wrong with the stream.

"Get Roy out of here," Jason said, standing up, eyes fixed on the stream. Felicity scooped Roy from the floor, then scurried away. Isabel helped Kori to her feet, then Kori took the lead toward where Jason was staring. As she got close, one hand flew to where her mouth would have been if she weren't wearing a helmet.

"It can't be," she whispered.

Jason looked around her. A Tamaranean boy about Jason and Isabel's age was lying in the water, golden skin tinted gray, dark webs of veins pulsing steadily, sending dark fluid toward small cuts in his abdomen that released the fluid into the water. His eyes were closed and his head drooped, but he was breathing.

Kori was shaking as she knelt down beside him and turned his face toward hers.

"Ryand'r?" she croaked.

* * *

Kori's heart shattered at the sight of her baby brother, half-dead and only getting worse. The disease spread from his body, infecting the water with an oily greenish-black that didn't belong in anyone's veins, much less their water and air.

"Help me move him," she said, already grabbing Ryand'r by the wrists to pull him out of the stream. Jason said nothing, but waded into the water and lifted Ryand'r's legs, helping Kori lay him on dry ground.

"I thought we were s'posed ta destroy the thing spreading the disease," Tigorr commented in a voice like the growling of a predator. Kori shot him a look filled with warning.

"He'll be okay," Jason reassured her. Then a blast of indigo Sun-fire hit him square in the chest, sending him flying downstream.

Kori shrieked at the same time Jason's girlfriend did, but while the Earth-woman ran toward Jason, Kori turned to the window, where Komand'r was suddenly standing as though she had been there all along.

" _You_ ," Kori growled, fists clenched as she rose to her feet.

"Me!" Kom replied with a smirk, pouncing to the floor, her own fists glowing.

 _Hate, strong as any Sun_.

Kori hated her sister beyond anyone else. She was the vilest enemy Kori had ever faced, a cruel predator with no love in her heart, no capacity for satisfaction, and no limits on what she was willing to do. Even to her own family.

Still, Kori felt the words leave her mouth. "How could you do this?"

"Being a ruler is pointless and unrewarding when your people despise you, your enemies don't take you seriously, and there's no room for advancement," Kom explained. She was like a child trying to come up with a logical reason for leaving her toys on the floor. "These people were never going to love me. So I'm destroying them. This blight I've concocted will choke out every life on this planet and every planet in the system! Then, I can finally move _on_ from this wretched existence."

She fired her starbolts at Kori, but Kori would not be moved so easily. The indigo Sun-fire blazed around her and she let it burn her; the fire within her would always be hotter. Instead, she leaned into the Sun-fire, even as it blistered her skin beneath her armor. And when it relented, she was still standing.

"You say that as though you wanted to be loved, Komand'r," she replied.

" _Who could love me?"_ Komand'r screamed, firing another blast of her starbolts. This time, Kori shot into the air, evading her sister's Sun-fire tantrum.

"Everyone could have," was her reply. It hardly seemed long ago that they did.

"They treated me like I was _broken_." Sun-fire blazed indigo all around Komand'r. "I would _never_ have been good enough for them because I was born different!" The tiles beneath her feet began to scorch and the plants behind her disintegrated into ash. "Our own parents chose you over me! I never stood a chance of belonging!"

The fire inside of Kori mellowed even as the Sun-fire outside of her grew. All the years Komand'r had existed with only her rage for a companion had reduced her to a pathetic, deluded shell of her former self.

"You chose to be a pariah," Kori said. "Every one of us loved you until you pushed us past our capacity for it. You are the only thing that turned you cruel."

Komand'r screamed as she released the Sun-fire she had built up at Kori, but Kori responded in kind, her own violet starbolts blocking her sister's. Kori looked down at her sister, trying to find any trace of the sibling she'd once loved, once wanted to be just like, but found none. It had all burned away. So instead she looked at her brother, made the unwilling catalyst for Komand'r's revenge. She looked at the Omega Men, who had crossed lightyears on a thin shred of hope that an exiled princess could save them. She looked at Jason, a child who had become a man carrying the weight of a world far too soon, and at the Earth-woman with him, who had been thrust headlong into a reality she didn't understand yet was willing to fight for anyway. She thought of Roy, the knight who would never stop fighting toward the light that so often slipped from his fingers; of Dick, the fiercest love she had ever felt; of Donna, her closest friend and her truest sister-in-arms. And she fired everything that she had at Komand'r, her starbolts the truest violet they had ever been.

In a blaze both wonderful and terrible to behold, Komand'r was consumed by Sun-fire, her body disintegrating instantaneously, leaving nothing but scattered ashes and scorched tiles. And Kori wept as she drifted to the floor, though from relief or anger or gladness or grief she did not know. But she laughed as she cried and the whole world seemed different.

* * *

"Mother?" was the first thought Ryand'r had as he regained his consciousness. Instead it was his sister, his Koriand'r, who replied, "No?"

Ryand'r forced his eyes to open. Koriand'r was standing beside where he lay, fully armored and holding his hand.

"Sister!" he corrected. "What brings you here?"

It felt like lifetimes since he'd last seen her, but now she stood before him, quite imposing in her armor, but her expression soft with concern.

"Ryand'r," Koriand'r began, sounding unnaturally unsure of herself. "Do you know where 'here' is?"

Ryand'r took stock of his surroundings. It seemed he was sequestered in a closed-off snug in a medical bay somewhere. He could see through the doors, and the rest of the medical bay was not unoccupied. In the main section, an Earth-man with bandages around his chest wandered in circles, taking deep breaths while an Earth-woman supported his wobbling steps, making sure he didn't collapse. In the other snug, another Earth-man was asleep on a cot, looking almost as bad as Ryand'r felt.

Overcome by a sudden wave of nausea, Ryand'r lay back down.

"I don't know where we are," he admitted.

"We've just left the Vegan system and are headed toward Earth," his sister told him. "Do you remember what happened?"

Ryand'r closed his eyes. "I remember Gordanians… and Komand'r was leading them. She was more desperate than I've ever seen her. She choked me with a horrible, grey substance and I didn't keep awake for very long after. I… I've never felt so sick."

Koriand'r brushed her fingers across his forehead.

"You are safe now," she said, her voice low. Soft. Reassuring. "You are healing quickly, and Komand'r will never hurt you again."

Ryand'r nodded and allowed his eyes to drift closed.

"Thank you."

"Ryand'r, why did you believe I was Mother when you first woke?"

 _Was it not obvious?_ Ryand'r wondered.

"You smelled just like her. I thought you noticed."

And Ryand'r drifted back to sleep.

* * *

Aside from feeling like something that had been vomited up by something else, Jason was feeling pretty good. He'd been released from the medical bay, and when they got back to Earth, there was nothing that needed doing except finishing their vacation.

Only, it didn't happen like that. Instead, a Middle Eastern man with long, white hair and a white and gold jumpsuit was waiting for them in their hotel room, casually sipping a cup of coffee. Jason had distinct memories of getting punched through a wall in an alternate universe by that very man.

"Oh finally," he said when they walked in, not standing up. "I was wondering when you would be back, Princess."

He didn't seem at all concerned that everyone who had just walked in was ready to shoot him (or, in Isabel's case, punch him.) He just crossed a leg over his knee and took another sip of coffee.

"I'm from an organization known as the Authority," he said. "Call me Apollo. Some major shit's about to go down that we figured you should know about."

Jason groaned softly.

"Oh _this_ fucking guy," he mumbled.

 **A/N: Whew! That was a lot, but Chapters 7 and 8 will be even longer! *airhorn noises***

 **-literally the only reason to go to France is in honor of Alexandre Dumas. He's the only noteworthy thing France has ever contributed to the world.**  
 **-let me TELL you about my dude Aramis. Even though all of the Musketeers from The Three Musketeers are Chaotic Disaster Bisexuals, Aramis and Porthos are usually the "comic relief" Musketeers. One of the villains basically calls them dumbasses, and she's not entirely wrong. Aramis' main goals in life are to drink, chase some tail, then go do God Stuff. Which he does. Unfortunately, he decides to quit doing the first two things in order to do the third thing IN THE MIDDLE OF IMPORTANT MUSKETEER BUSINESS. So our hero, D'Artagnan: Disaster Bi Numero Uno, goes to bring him back only to find he's annoying the SHIT out of all the other Good and Holy People at the seminary or wherever (it's been at least a year since I read the book, there may be some misinformation in here.) So he goes back to Musketeering and decides to become a priest at a later date. Out of all the Musketeers, I feel he's the one Robin!Jason would most want to be like.**  
 **-my Omega Men lineup is basically the one from the 1980's series nobody cared about, so if any of you can actually name all of the Omega Men mentioned, I will physically manifest in your house and offer you a high five.**  
 **-I don't think gas is typically lower than normal on holiday weekends, but I stopped caring in 1976.**  
 **-I based the Gordanians' personalities on these space-cop dudes from the 1970's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy TV series, who were based on Laurel and Hardy and were ridiculous, kinda like the Gordanians. ("But E, wouldn't it have made more sense to base them on the Vogons, if you were gonna base them on Hitchhiker's characters at all?" Shh. Shut mouth.)**  
 **-When trying to decide how I wanted to describe Tamaran, I may have spent too much time trying to conceptualize unique Space Geology because why should every planet look kinda like Earth?**  
 **-I just realized I killed two major villains in a row. This, unfortunately, is not a pattern. Nobody get your hopes up for the next chapter.**  
 **-I'm tweaking Apollo's origins so that he's originally from Khandaq. More on this maybe later.**  
 **Oof, there we go! The long awaited update! Winter Break is fast approaching, so hopefully the next will not take as long! I can't promise anything, though.**  
 **For those of you asking if I'm writing any pairings - uh, probably none you're thinking of, but there eventually will be a couple lowkey bits of romance in there. None are planned that involve Kori, though, because part of why I wrote this was frustration about her getting passed around like a joint with boobs. I mostly want to focus on non-romantic relationships, tbh.**  
 **Thanks for reading and commenting! Comments are like catnip for writers! That's just science!**


	7. The End of the Universe As We Know It

Ghosts gathered in his room every night when he couldn't sleep, watching with hollow eyes, dead before their time. It wasn't always the same ones, but the not knowing made it worse. Would Corey be there? Would Lian? On a particularly low night, even a younger version of Donna with a hole burned through her chest had appeared, cold and angry.

That night, Joey was sitting at the foot of his bed in the medical bay, eyes wandering around the room.

"You deserved to die more than I did," he said after a long silence.

"I know," Roy answered quietly. He thought about it every day.

"You should join me. There's nobody left to miss you. Nobody who wouldn't get over it, anyway."

"Hey. Shut up," an authoritative new voice cut in. Startled, Roy looked up.

The newcomer was a middle-aged man in a dark green park ranger's windbreaker and khakis. He had short, fading red hair and very familiar green eyes. He was the first ghost Roy had seen who really looked real. He laid a hand on Roy's shoulder and looked him dead in the eyes.

"I'm proud of you" he said, his voice strong but gentle, and heavy with an Irish accent. "After everything you've been through, you are still out there, kicking ass, and being a pretty damn decent human being. Junior, you're a survivor. It's who you are. Don't let anybody, not even yourself, take that away from you."

The tears came before he could stop them, so he wrapped his arms around the man and buried his face in his shoulder.

"It's so hard, Dad," he choked out.

"Nobody said it wouldn't be," Roy Harper Sr. replied, rubbing his son's back. "But you'll make it."

"Listen to the man, Roy," another new voice added.

Robert Brave Bow stood in the center of the room, watching them as though he'd been there all along. His long, gray hair was neatly braided, the collar of his shirt was straight, and he didn't look at all as tired as the other ghosts did. He looked exactly like himself.

"You're not dumb, kid," he continued. "Don't listen to the parts of you that say you are."

"Don't leave me," Roy begged his fathers.

Roy Sr. ran a hand through his son's hair.

"We're always with you," he replied.

That night, Roy slept better than he had in months.

Jason was, to put it lightly, troubled. Apollo had recognized him. That itself wasn't the problem. The problem was that Apollo was from another universe, and the universe jump wasn't _his_ problem. (His problem, which had nothing to do with a universe jump, was the impending invasion of a genocidal alien horde. The usual stuff.)

"I'll meet you there," he said once Apollo had finished his spiel. "I should take Isabel home."

Isabel shuffled uncomfortably and tucked her hair behind her ear. "Yeah, I mean, it's been fun, but my boss probably thinks I'm dead. I only took one day off, and I have no idea how long we've been gone."

"Too long," Jason muttered.

"And I don't know I would feel right leaving before Roy wakes up," Kori added. The blight Komand'r had infected Tamaran with had hit Roy pretty hard. Neither he nor Ryand'r were conscious for more than a few minutes at a time, so they had left him in the sick bay on the spaceship for the time being.

Apollo rolled his eyes and took a deep breath before answering. "Look, princess. The sky is about to fall, and if we don't stop the bastards who plan on making that happen, your friend probably won't be waking up. Because he'll be dead. And so will everyone else in the cosmic neighborhood. You can sit here, chewing your nails, waiting for the dead to come back to life, or you can prevent their dying in the first place. You're supposedly a badass, right? Come be a badass."

Kori raised an eyebrow. "Convincing argument. Let me speak to the Omega Men, and then I will join you."

Apollo leaned back in his chair with a satisfied smile. "I appreciate it. The rest of the world probably does, too."

Jason stood up and offered Isabel his hand. She took it, barely trying to look like she wasn't staring at Apollo.

"Who was that?" she whispered as they left the hotel room.

"Angry, gay Superman," Jason replied. "I don't know a lot about him, but he's potentially cool."

"Something about him bothers you."

"He's from another universe, and I don't know what he's doing here. If I didn't know better, I'd say he's acting like he's been here all along."

Isabel stared at him for a moment. "Okay, sure. Why not?"

Jason sighed. He realized how crazy everything sounded, how overwhelming the situation must be for Isabel.

"This is a lot, isn't it?" he asked.

She rubbed her arm. "It's one thing to hear about it. It's kinda another to be in the middle of it."

"I understand! Is there anything I can do to make it better?"

She crossed her arms and looked at him incredulously, one eyebrow raised. "You could tell me who you actually are, for one."

Oh right, that detail.

"I'd rather not, to be honest," he confessed, rubbing his neck, "but you deserve the truth, after everything we've asked you to be okay with. My name's not Peter, its Jason. I don't work for WayneTech, I get my money from the gangsters and drug dealers I kill. Because Batman doesn't always do what it takes to save people, so I do what he won't. I never should've called you, I never should've gotten you involved in this."

Isabel's eyes widened. "No, you shouldn't have. But you did, and I appreciate your honesty. Are…" she faltered, "are you going to kill me?"

"No," Jason replied softly. She was handling it better than he thought she would, in all honesty. "I won't hurt you. I really am taking you home. You never have to see me again."

"That's probably for the best. But…" she trailed off, embarrassed.

"But?" Jason repeated, surprised. How in the _hell_ could there be a "but" at a time like this?

"But my life has never been this interesting," she finished.

"'Interesting' isn't the word you should be using," Jason replied.

"Tell me the moment there is any change," Kori ordered. And it _was_ an order. She hated to leave Roy and Ryand'r, but Ryand'r, at least, was with friends. Roy would wake up in the company of strangers. Kori wished to make the time he spent alone as short as possible. Nobody would be abandoned on her watch.

"Right away, Your Highness!" the Doc chirped over Kalista's shoulder.

"Will there be any other matters that need our attending to for Your Highness?" Kalista asked. And Kori certainly thought she could think of something. There were likely to be a hundred reasons not to end the call, not to distance herself from the ones her heart was longing for, if she could just think of them.

"No," she replied instead. "Thank you for everything, Queen Kalista. I'll not soon forget everything you and the rest of the Omega Men have done for me."

"Excellent, then! We'll all be hearing from each other in no time at all, don't you worry!"

The call fizzed out, leaving a blank communicator screen for Kori to stare into.

"I suppose that's everything taken care of," she said to Apollo, reluctantly putting the device away.

"Don't think I don't understand how you feel," he said, sounding kinder than he had up until that point. "Family is everything."

"It is as you said," Kori replied, steeling herself. "If I do not wish them destroyed, fighting for them is the best option I have."

"Let's kick some ass and save some day, then!"

They got separate motel rooms – they had both decided that was for the better – so Jason was surprised to hear a soft knock on his door.

"Can I come in?" Isabel asked when he opened the door. Jason stepped aside and gestured to the room. Isabel smiled as she brushed past him and sat on the bed. Out of habit, Jason scanned the area before shutting and locking the door.

"What's up?" he asked, leaning against the TV stand with his arms crossed.

"I have a confession to make," she said, voice soft, face flushing in embarrassment. "Don't be mad."

"I'm not gonna get mad at you."

"Well," she said, "I think, that, uh… I think I might prefer… women. Not to you, like, specifically!" She was rambling now, words spilling out almost faster than she could say them. "But to all guys, you know? I kinda asked you out as a last-ditch attempt to be attracted to a guy because you seemed cool and if I can't fall for you, what guy can I fall for? But now I can't stop thinking about your alien princess friend, and I thought I should just be… honest. About that. And I swear I was going to tell you this before you dropped the bombshell about kinda being a gangster, it has nothing to do with that, pleasedon'tbemad."

Jason exhaled, more relieved than he thought he would be. "Oh, thank God."

Isabel looked confounded. "Huh?"

Jason raked his fingers through his hair. "I was actually about to admit the same thing. I don't think I'm actually attracted to women," he admitted.

Isabel's eyes grew wide. "Oh!" She started to laugh. "Aren't we a pair?"

Jason grinned. "Yeah, I suppose we are. You wanna get some Thai food?"

"I'd love that," Isabel said with a nod, her smile matching Jason's.

"Don't let them touch you" was essentially an unspoken rule. However, it was said anyway. Several times. The Karibna swarmed like a cancer, leeching away the life of anything they touched. The Authority, however, swarmed to meet them.

Ozone, fire, and electricity filled Kori's nostrils. As it turned out, she wasn't the only one with the ability to make lots of things be on fire at once. Apollo was quite a bit like Superman, harnessing the Sun's power to create lasers from his eyes, but the way he fought was vicious, with no mercy for those that threatened what he had sworn to protect. His daughter, an unassuming teenager named Jenny, was channeling lightning through her body and through the air simultaneously, singlehandedly becoming the most terrifying teenager Kori had ever encountered. And Kori herself was more than a conduit for the power of the Stars; in that moment, she _was_ a star. She was more than Princess Koriand'r of Tamaran, she was Starfire of Earth, and she would never lose another planet.

Those who weren't various sorts of on fire rained destruction in their own ways. Apollo's husband, the Midnighter, was the finest marksman Kori had ever seen. A woman clothed in metal, who they referred to as The Engineer, created duplicates of herself that wielded arrays of weapons they slashed through the enemy ranks with, then recycled when finished. The one they called Doctor was a winged, taloned woman who transmuted the attacking aliens into honeybees. And, for some reason, John Constantine and a handful of other heroes she recognized were there as well.

"I wish Jack could be here," the Engineer lamented. "He'd be kicking serious ass right now."

"No, he wouldn't," the Doctor replied, sending a new swarm of honeybees scattering through the air. "Without an urban environment, his powers fade too rapidly for him to be very helpful."

The Engineer glared at the cornfields around them with disdain. "I know. That's why I said I wish Jack _could_ be here, not that I wish he _was_ here."

"They just keep coming!" Jenny complained. "What the hell?"

Kori felt as though she was breaking into a sweat, but the liquid evaporated before it actually cooled her.

"The Bleed's still open," Apollo replied, looking up. "They won't stop until it's closed."

Kori followed his gaze to a hole in the sky that Karibna were endlessly pouring out of, like clumps of jingoistic, purple spaghetti with big, green teeth.

"How do we close it?" she asked.

Apollo frowned. "Angie? How _do_ we close it?"

The Engineer slowed her assault on the aliens.

"I have a theory," she said after a long pause. "But you're not gonna like it."

Apollo sighed. "If it works, it works."

"I think we have to destroy the Carrier."

Hot water thundered from the showerhead with impressive water pressure for a cheap motel's shower, drowning out the episode of _Mysteries at the Castle_ Isabel was watching in the bedroom. Jason's aching muscles reveled in the heat and pressure. His bruised ribs were pissed about it. So, despite his urge to live forever under the stream of hot water, he cut the shower short and gingerly toweled off.

He grabbed his boxers, a pair of flannel pajama pants, and… shit. He'd left his shirt in the other room. He got as dressed as he was able to, brushed his teeth, then knocked on the door to catch Isabel's attention.

"Just to let you know," he announced, "I am not shirtless on purpose, I swear. I guess I just didn't grab it before I went in the bathroom."

Hoping that the warning was sufficient, he eased the door open and froze. Isabel had fallen to the floor and was seizing violently. Her mouth moved soundlessly, but the terror-stricken look on her face told Jason that this was not normal, and something was very wrong.

Laughter bubbled up from every corner of the room, then the power blinked out a second later.

" _Hello again, Jason!_ " the Joker's voice exclaimed from somewhere unseen. Fists clenched, Jason scanned the room wildly through the darkness, but the only thing moving was Isabel. " _Long time, no death battle! I think that's a shame! Arkham, huh? Gets in the way of everything! But now that the two of us are free men once more, let's party!_ "

On the floor, Isabel finally lost consciousness, so Jason rolled her onto her side, every nerve in his body jangling.

 _"Oh, don't worry about her! I already called 911, so you and I can get straight to the good stuff!_ " Seemingly of its own accord, the front door swung open. _"Come plaaay!"_

"I don't play that way," Jason muttered, searching for his gun, finding it at the bottom of his duffel bag.

Lights and sirens split the darkness, startling Jason, because ambulances did not typically have blue lights. He held his firearm at the ready as he edged toward the door, nerves beginning to jangle. He was almost out the door when he ran straight into a GCPD officer, sending the man's flashlight flying.

"HEY!" the officer shouted, trying to hide his disorientation. "GCPD! Drop your weapon!"

Jason punched the guy in the face and shoved him into the room, ducking low as he stepped through the doorway, feeling the beams of more GCPD flashlights on him as he ran for the stairs to the parking lot.

"Stop!" one of the cops yelled. "Hands in the air!"

Jason did raise his hands, only to grab the railing, and flip over it to the parking lot below. Darkness was on his side. He could outmaneuver them almost too easily to even worry about them.

"Worry about the girl!" he shouted. He wanted to add something more colorful to the statement, but provocation wouldn't help Isabel. He doubted their first priority was helping her, but nobody had fired a weapon yet, so maybe they'd be lucky just once.

The bushes around the side of the motel rustled, and when something within them giggled, Jason didn't hesitate to train the barrel of his gun on them. His ears picked up a smaller sound behind him, but he didn't have a chance to react before a jolt of electricity ripped through his body, and his muscles seized, his nerves screamed, and suddenly the power outage wasn't the only reason his vision was dark.

If Kori hadn't been so busy trying to fight for her life while holding a conversation, she would have admired how easily the Engineer did it. The metal woman looked unconcerned as she sent thin blades slicing through Karibna flesh, tossing her titanium braids over her shoulder with one hand and resting the other on her hip.

"The Carrier's been acting up ever since we merged with this Alternate," she explained. "I didn't notice at first, but the Door hasn't been closing all the way, and what stays open is bigger each time. At this point, it might as well not be closed at all. Anything can get through."

Apollo and the others looked, understandably, baffled.

"How?" the Doctor asked.

"I'm not sure exactly, but it's almost like the Carrier doesn't fit into any of the Alternates properly anymore. It's like it's stuck mid-shift."

Jenny's eyes widened. "Our baby universe is growing up," she said, softly. "She's ready to be on her own."

"So what do we do, then?" the Midnighter asked.

"If I'm right and Jenny's right," the Engineer mused, thinking out loud more than really explaining, "then releasing the universe powering the ship will close the door, sealing us here, but also stopping the invasion. Oof."

"Well, that sucks." The Midnighter cracked his knuckles. "How do we do it?"

Jason awoke to the sound of water dripping and an icy chill settled into his bones. The cold bit into his bare skin and reminded him how much his bruised ribs still hurt. His eyes flew open when he remembered the events that led to his current situation: Isabel. The police. The Joker. _Especially_ Joker, who'd been the proverbial man-behind-the-curtain for the entire horrifying chain of the evening's events.

Jason took a deep breath, then nothing happened. He couldn't move. Not his head, not his hands, not even a toe. He couldn't even _feel_ most of his body. His consciousness may have been placed inside a block of Styrofoam, for all he knew.

 _Well, shit_.

"Well, well, well! Good morning, sleepyhead!" the unmistakable voice of the Joker crowed from somewhere Jason couldn't see. Despite lacking the use of his vocal cords, Jason groaned. He hoped the sound conveyed how incredibly tired of the Joker's shit he was.

Joker, however, was undeterred. His face floated into view as he came to stand over Jason, their faces nearly touching. "Is someone a little grumpy this morning?"

Joker moved away again as quickly as he'd come, chuckling all the while.

" _Imagine me and you, and you and me, no matter how we toss the dice, it has to be,"_ he sang, his voice growing farther away, moving around the room, but never quite disappearing.

Jason sighed and took the opportunity to ground himself by taking stock of his surroundings.

 _What's one thing I can smell?_ he started. _Musty rainwater._

 _Two things I can feel: stone of some kind… brick? Slimy brick. And damp air._

 _Three things I can see: old pipes. Vaulted ceiling, maybe? Moss growing on the stone._

 _Four things I can hear: my breathing. Joker's godawful singing. Water dripping. Rats._

 _Bonus round: what can I taste? Chicken pad kee-mao. Damn, I forgot to brush my teeth._

Jason's hand twitched. Slowly, he curled, then uncurled one finger. He felt himself smile. Then he felt as much as heard Joker's footsteps shuffling back toward him and let his face slide back into an expressionless mask.

"I suppose you're wondering why I've called this meeting," Joker quipped. Jason blinked. Joker was standing over him, holding a crowbar, because _of course_ he was.

"Well," he continued, crouching down, tapping the crowbar against Jason's forehead to punctuate his words, "I don't half-ass things."

It was all Jason could do not to flinch.

"And this time, with you a little… mmm, paralyzed, and without big, bad Batsy on the way, we can take our time! How fun is that?"

Jason blinked again.

"Aww," Joker pouted, "c'mon, it'll be fun! I, for one, will certainly laugh about it later."

 _How original_.

Jason felt his muscles tense as the Joker raised the crowbar and shouted, "Batter up, Bat-brat!" Before the crowbar could connect with any important body parts, Jason rolled out of the way, hearing the crowbar crack the brick floor instead. The Joker laughed with delight.

"Oh," he cackled, "you _are_ getting into this! I'm so glad! I just hate playing by myself."

"Can't have you playing with yourself," Jason muttered, the words barely above a whisper. Shakily, he got to his feet. Most of his body was still numb, "defrosting" slowly in the cold underground cavern.

Humming tunelessly, the Joker swung at Jason again, but Jason caught the crowbar and wrenched it away.

"I'm _tired_ of this," Jason hissed. He adjusted his grip on the crowbar so that he was the one wielding it. "Making this personal is the last thing you ever do." He allowed a wolfish grin to spread across his face. "Good thing big, bad Batsy isn't on the way, huh?"

Without waiting for a – most likely obnoxious – reaction, Jason swung at the Joker. Joker shook his head sadly even as the swing connected and knocked him backward.

"You kids," he said, "thinking you know how to play the game without even reading the rules. I mean, I burned the rulebook, but still!"

Jason ignored him, and went for another swing, noticing the joy buzzer in Joker's hand too late. The crowbar connected with the device when Joker raised his hand in mock distress, sending high voltage current rocketing through the metal and into Jason. Jason convulsed, unable to let go. The Joker's laughter rose in his ears as his senses started to go blank, the void drawing him closer.

The last thing he saw was the interlocking "A's" of the Arkham Asylum insignia stamped into one of the bricks.

The last thing he heard was, "'This,' as you called it, is only beginning."

"I won't let you do this," the Midnighter told Apollo, teeth gritted, voice urgent. "I can't lose you."

"What other option is there?" Apollo asked his husband sadly. "It's me, or the whole world."

Between trading blows with the extraterrestrial invaders, a plan had been formulated. Apollo's strength and ability to survive in space made him the prime candidate to follow the Carrier into the Bleed and release the not-so-baby-anymore universe into the stream between what they referred to as Alternates. The Engineer ordinarily would've handled the task, but piloting the massive shiftship and then destroying it would require all of her attention, and her duplicates were the biggest tactical advantage the Earth's defenders had over Her attackers. The problem with Apollo taking the lead was that the explosion would more than likely rip the Solar power from his body, leaving him too weak to escape the Bleed before it sealed, and he would die alone in a void between realities.

"I will do it," Kori said without hesitation. Several heads turned her way. "I may not have the strength your Apollo has, but I process Solar energy differently. I can survive this."

She had no clue whether that was wishful thinking or not, but she chose to believe that anything was possible. She refused to even give a thought to any other possibility.

"You would do that?" Apollo asked her, looking almost stunned. "I would never ask that of you. Just that you came to help down here is enough."

"It may not be what you asked me to do," Kori replied, "but it is what I am going to do."

This time when he woke up, Jason found himself lying on a musty cot, rather than stone floor. He could also move. At least, he could move most of his body. His arms were being stubborn.

When he sat up, he figured out why. He was in a straightjacket. And he was locked in a tiny, windowless cell made of iron bars and stone. He remembered the brick he'd seen before losing consciousness, and everything finally clicked: he was in Arkham. An _old_ part of Arkham.

Jason struggled against the straightjacket, but it wasn't nearly as rotted as everything else, and remained secure. He allowed himself to slump in defeat.

 _"The more you struggle, the worse it's going to be," a voice with a thick Russian accent growled in his ear. He wasn't sure whether his assailant was part of the so-called training Talia wanted to start him on, but his main concern was the knife pressing against his ribs. If he breathed too deeply, it would break the skin. "You understand?"_

 _Jason nodded._

 _"I'm gonna take my hand off your mouth now," the voice continued. "If you so much as hiccup, my knife's going through your throat. You understand?"_

 _Jason nodded again. The stranger's grip loosened, there was a zipping sound, then a blindfold was secured over Jason's eyes. Jason lifted a hand to touch the fabric, but the stranger grabbed his wrists, yanked his hands behind him, and bound them tightly. He heard the zipping sound a second time, then the stranger grabbed his arm and pushed him forward._

 _"Let's go."_

 _As he was shoved from his room and down the hall, Jason wondered at what point he should start screaming for Talia. When he was pulled outside into the chilly Autumn air, he decided that was as good a time as any._

 _As if anticipating Jason's move, the stranger's hand clamped back around his mouth._

 _"Talia is not coming, boy," he growled, his mouth right next to Jason's ear. Jason fought back a whimper. "Do you really wish to die tonight?"_

 _Jason rapidly shook his head. He just wanted to go back to bed. But it looked like it was lesson time. Or he was being kidnapped by someone who'd done their research. The hand released him, then grabbed his arm again._

 _"Good choice."_

 _The smell of bleach was growing stronger. Jason had an uneasy feeling he knew where the stranger was taking him. A gate squeaked open, then shut again after they'd passed through it. The sound was deafening in the night._

Please, _Jason thought,_ someone put a stop to this.

 _"I recommend taking a deep breath," his captor said, stopping and turning Jason around. Then he shoved both hands into Jason's chest, and time seemed to flow in slow motion as Jason fell backward. He remembered to suck in a breath, but nearly all of it was knocked from his lungs when he hit the icy water._

 _As he sank, Jason struggled and thrashed, kicking out in every direction, looking for footing. Every direction was wrong, and he needed air. Slowly, his legs found a rhythm, and he found himself kicking in a specific direction. Right as he thought he was going to lose consciousness, he broke the surface with a gasp, drawing air into his lungs as though it was going out of style._

 _Now that he could breathe, it wasn't so bad. He kicked lightly across the water until his head knocked into the side. Then he dropped his legs, pulling himself upright, and felt along the wall until he found a ladder and pulled himself up it._

 _"Excellent," the stranger's voice said, this time hardly growling at all. "Do it again."_

 _He shoved Jason back into the water, but this time, Jason was ready. He kicked back to the surface with relative ease and found the wall, then the ladder in half the time he had before._

 _The stranger grabbed his arms and yanked him out of the water, then gently lowered him to his knees. He took the blindfold off first, then cut the ropes around Jason's wrists. Jason was eager to have feeling in his hands again, and rubbed his wrists to hopefully speed up the process._

 _As he did so, he sat down and turned around to face the stranger who apparently_ had _been trying to teach him something. The mystery dude was an unassuming, middle-aged man in jeans and a wool sweater._

Showoff.

 _"Do you understand?" he asked for the third time that night, pointing the knife at Jason in a professorly way._

 _"Not even a little," Jason replied, shivering too hard to see straight._

 _The man tossed a towel from the duffel bag on the chair next to him at Jason._

 _"There is a difference," he explained, "between struggling, and fighting for your life. You waste your energy struggling, you are spent once you actually have to fight. And that is how you die._ "

Jason took a deep breath.

 _Stop struggling_ , he told himself. _Save your energy for fighting_.

He freed himself from the straightjacket in a matter of minutes.

 _Your move, Joker_.

He went to the door of his cell and yanked on the rusted iron bars. They held firm, but he noticed something that made the part of his brain that wanted instant gratification shout for joy and the rational part of his brain sound the alarm bells: the keys were in the lock. But despite his misgivings, Jason turned the key. The door scraped open with a sound that was like the auditory equivalent of pouring lemon juice into your eyes.

The stone walls and floor of the corridor outside the cell had been painted with messy, fluorescent arrows that pointed down a dark hallway. It definitely looked like carnival-themed danger, but without on overwhelming number of options – or any options that weren't the hallway, for that matter – Jason saw no choice but to follow it.

The hallways were a maze that twisted around like a snake in its death throes. They grew darker and darker as Jason went along, the arrows getting smaller, fewer, and further between. Occasionally, the Joker's laughter would echo around him, sometimes far away and other times too close for comfort. Sometimes the floor was covered in something that made a horrible squishing as he walked across it. He tried not to think about what that might be.

Regularly, he forced himself to stop, breathe, and ground himself.

 _All of this is designed to push you_ , he told himself. _If you let it make you crazy, then he wins._

It worked until the floor disappeared from underneath him.

They had been wrong about what releasing the Universe would be like. It was light and warm and gentle, softly kissing her face.

A rainbow of colors never seen before.

An infinity of possibility.

Unfolding like a flower, spreading like a fire, flowing like the tide.

The most beautiful music she had ever heard. Or seen.

She saw music, tasted light, smelled hope, felt the colors.

And then it was gone, and the door was closing. Kori raced for the rapidly shrinking hole in the Bleed, empowered by the Suns of worlds that had never before existed. She raced past the crippled remains of the Authority's Carrier, moving faster than the speed of a thought, and crashed back into her Universe with mere moments to spare.

For the first time in a while, she enjoyed the sensation of a freefall. The wind whistled through her hair, like it did on a pleasant afternoon drive along the coast when everything was perfect.

She crashed to Earth with a magnificent _SPLAT_ into a pile of slaughtered Karibna entrails and corn stalks, and though it knocked the breath from her lungs, when she recovered, all she could do was laugh for the pure joy of things.

The concerned faces of many members of the Authority, including one Jack Hawksmoor – who had teleported off the Carrier well before She'd been destroyed, crowded around her. Seeming to realize oxygen would be useful at the moment, Jenny snapped, "Guys, give her some space!" before asking, "Are you okay?"

Kori grinned. "I am wonderful. Thank you for asking!"

 _Seriously, have I been breathing mud or something?_

Roy's eyes opened slowly. His whole body was exhausted and vaguely gummy-feeling.

A soft, blue light shone from the floor. Roy rolled over to investigate, and his eyebrows made a beeline for the top of his head when he saw the last thing he expected to see: a white Corgi in a Blue Lantern uniform, head tilted to the side in curiosity.

" _Hello!_ " it greeted him, voice soft and gentle. " _I'm a dog!_ "

"You sure are," Roy said, a little in awe, gently sliding from the cot onto the floor to investigate the matter further. The Corgi nudged its way under his hand, and for a while the two sat in silence, Roy petting the strange little dog that had appeared from nowhere, the dog wagging its tail – and the rest of its body.

"Why are you here?" Roy asked finally, ignoring all the other questions that desperately wanted to be asked.

" _It's my job!_ " the Corgi replied.

"You mean, here on the ship? I didn't see you earlier."

" _No, I'm not with the Omega Men. I am my own dog!_ "

Roy was confused. "Then how did you get here?"

" _Hope always finds a way._ "

This time, before Jason even opened his eyes, he had a feeling he wouldn't be escaping. He'd barely been conscious when someone scooped his battered body off the floor, carried him across the room, then laid him out on a hard surface. He was unable to protest when his wrists were strapped down, then his ankles. Additional straps were secured across his shins, his hips, and his chest and upper arms, followed by a mask being placed over his mouth and nose.

Breathing was difficult, and he couldn't get enough air. He tested how well he was able to move, and deduced that he was strapped down to the surface he was lying on more securely than the luggage on a Wayne family vacation. He cracked his eyes open, and the overhead lights nearly blinded him.

He turned his head to the side, but the Joker's clammy hands yanked his head back to its original position, then flicked him between the eyes.

 _Is it possible to fracture an eyebrow?_ he wondered, eyes watering. _Because I'm pretty sure I've fractured an eyebrow._

"Now, now! If you don't hold still, this will only take longer!" Joker said in a singsong voice. "Uncle Joker's not a patient man, you know!"

"Fnkf you," Jason mumbled around the oxygen mask.

Something cold was pressed against his forehead, pressed down for a few seconds, then eased up on. Jason tossed his head, trying to get rid of the sensation, and realized the thing was still clinging to his face. Joker grabbed his head again, flicked him harder – this time hard enough to make his eyes sting – and pressed another cold something to the other side of his forehead.

"We're nearly at the end of the beginning, my boy! Don't give up on me juuust yet!"

The Joker hummed as he pulled a strap across Jason's forehead.

"I'm giving you a gift," he said. "See, it was _awfully_ mean of me to kill you at the height of your sidekick career, so I'm giving you a once in a life time – well, for most people – opportunity!" He dropped his voice to a stage whisper. "I'm gonna make you _my_ sidekick! It's been a hot minute since I had a good Harley Quinn to do my bidding!"

Cold, black dread filled Jason's stomach and he struggled despite the shockwaves of pain that movement sent through his broken body. He had to get the mask loose, or free an arm, or do _something_ to halt any progress the Joker could make on his sick experiment.

The squeak of a knob turning caught his ear, and he tried to close his eyes and ground himself before anything else could happen.

But he felt the laughter bubbling up before he could stop it. A giggle escaped, and in a matter of seconds Jason was laughing like a madman, his restraints the only thing keeping him from falling on the floor.

The Joker slid a screen in front of his face.

"Tell me, Jason," he crooned, "how do you feel when you see this?"

The screen blazed to life, a high-resolution photo of Batman filling it. Jason's heart leaped. Even after all the evidence to the contrary, the earnest, innocent part of him still believed his father would come to save him, if only he figured out what was going on.

A jolt of electricity shot through his body, and Jason screamed, then choked as the scream turned back into laughter.

"And this?"

Batman and Robin. Bruce and him. Another jolt of electricity. Another scream choked out by laughter.

Every photo was the same. Every image that brought him joy only _hurt_. It had to stop. There had to be an end.

Soon, he couldn't tell the difference between the screams and the laughter anymore.

"I am so sorry you had to wake up on your own," Kori whispered into Roy's hair, holding him close, as tightly as she dared.

"I wasn't alone, actually," he replied.

"What?"

"Yeah, there was this little Blue Lantern dog here," he explained. "Kept me company until I felt a little better."

Reluctantly, Kori pulled away. "I am so sorry for what my sister did to you."

Roy stroked her hair. "Princess, I would do it all again at least twice if it meant protecting you. How are you?"

Kori still wasn't sure how she was. Something Ryand'r had said was bothering her.

"I killed her," she said instead. "I finally killed Komand'r, and I don't know what to feel."

"Was it the right choice?" Roy asked. He didn't sound judgmental, merely curious.

Kori nodded. "Yes. Of course it was. But I thought I would feel more. I thought I would feel _something_ at her passing."

"Give it time," Roy advised. "Sometimes our feelings take a while to catch up to us."

She liked the way he had phrased the statement.

"Why don't we go check on Ry?" he suggested.

Kori nodded. "I would like that."

"And Kori? When your feelings do catch up, don't hesitate to talk to me. Hope always finds a way."

 **A/N:**

 **Merry Holidays, all y'all! All I got you was this chapter! Hopefully nobody will be wanting a gift receipt, because this is non-refundable! And I've finally started throwing receipts away instead of keeping them for five years for no reason.  
-Apparently, Roy's bio parents are from Northern Ireland! I can't remember whether Roy was actually born there or not, though. I think he might've been?  
-I gave Brave Bow a first name because I'll be expanding on Roy's tribe family later! (And all the contemporary Navajo names I, personally, know of are a little like that. Though I don't know a lot, admittedly.)  
-lesbian/gay solidarity!  
-Things I know about the Karibna: 1. they're gross.  
-I've read... a LOT of The Authority while researching for this, but haven't gotten all through it yet. So I wasn't sure whether to use Habib or Shen as the Doctor. But according to the wiki, Shen's the most current Doctor pre-New52 (and I'm ignoring the New 52 as much as possible) so I went with her. The problem is, I have no idea what she's like as the Doctor! Because I've only gotten as far as Habib! So I'm downplaying my own favorite character! Whoops!  
-IS IT A VACATION IF NOBODY'S WATCHING A TRAVEL CHANNEL SHOW NARRATED BY DON WILDMAN? NO! NO IT'S NOT!  
-Someday, I'll do a side-by-side-by-side comparison of Superman, Apollo, and Starfire and how they stack up against each other. Because if I do it here, the notes will be as long as the chapter. To summarize: they're all pretty different, actually.  
-The flashback is based on Red Hood: The Lost Days, but not pulled directly from it. The Russian dude is based on the douchey Russian professor from The Magicians (Mayakovsky or something, I think?)  
-Okay, I know. I KNOW that Hope Corgi is a fan-made character. BUT HE DESERVES TO BE REAL. He's such a good boyyy  
-Yeah, yeah, I'm mean. I know. But the final line of the chapter is the final line for a reason. "Hope always finds a way." It'll be okay in the end!**


	8. Will the Real Jason Please Stand Up?

"I'm so relieved by your recovery," Kori told Roy as they walked, arm in arm, along the deck of the ship. "I knew you wouldn't give up so easily. If I might ask, why are you so afraid to live? You fight so hard not to die, then regret that you don't?"

Roy looked at his feet. "The only things that are good in my life always get ripped away from me. After the hundredth time it happens, you start to think maybe the problem is you."

Kori knew exactly what he was referring to.

"But wouldn't those people want you to keep going?" she asked. "Lian and –"

"Maybe!" he shouted, cutting her off. "But every night, they tell me differently."

Kori looked at him, confused. "What?"

"It started after Lian – … it started after I started using again, and it hasn't stopped." He looked like he was in pain, but he kept talking. "I see these, ghosts, hallucinations, or whatever, of people I've lost, and they want me dead. How do I live with that?"

Kori pulled him closer, until their foreheads were pressed together. "With courage."

He pulled away. "I'm trying, but it's getting harder to tell the difference between courageous and crazy."

"Then I will be here to help."

"I thought you had your own shit to sort out?"

Kori smiled. "I am very good at multitasking."

Roy shook his head. "I can't ask you to do that."

"You didn't. I decided to. You are my friend, I am doing what friends do. Come, let's check on Ryand'r again. He's been waking up more frequently lately."

* * *

Stephanie Brown kicked her heels against the side of the building she was perched on and took a bite of her lunch. Somehow, peanut butter and Nutella and jelly tasted better a few hundred feet in the air. It was just Physics.

Sunsets were prettier up there as well. Fewer buildings hid the gold that washed over everything, and it was easy to pretend you were floating above the city, looking down from heaven like a guardian angel or something equally adorable.

 _Hey, that would be a good Halloween costume_ , she thought, _Guardian Angel. It'd be like a regular angel, but with a sword! Why isn't this a thing?_

She was rudely interrupted from considering the subject further by activity in her peripheral vision.

Someone staggered out of an alley, doubled over, on the verge of collapsing. Steph couldn't hear them from where she was sitting, but they appeared to be coughing or dry-heaving almost too hard to breathe.

Without wasting a second, Steph anchored her grapple line and slid down the side of the building as fast as she dared. Her boots barely touched the ground before she was sprinting in the direction of the person, whose coughing was getting louder and worse by the second.

"Hey!" she called. "Do you need help?"

The person's head snapped up as they turned to look at her with a leering, wild-eyed grin. Stephanie realized that the coughing wasn't coughing at all – it was laughter. Bone-chilling laughter.

She began to back away, hand flying to her earpiece.

"I don't know who's listening," she began, "but we have a great big problem."

* * *

 _There was one motel close to the border, small and almost at capacity, but it was clean and had a vacant room, so it was perfect. Roy curled up against the headboard of the bed and watched Joey mess with his luggage._

 _"You sure we're doing the right thing?" he asked. A stupid question, really. Nothing was certain._

 _"I hope so," Joey replied. "I mean, this is what we do, right? At least for me, I think this is what I've been given another chance for. Or, that's what I'm gonna tell myself so I don't go crazy. Again."_

 _"Good for you." Roy didn't even try to keep the bitterness from his voice. "I can feel myself going crazy. The world's turned upside-down, I'm going into withdrawal, I've never felt more alone in my entire goddamn life, Jade hates me and I think she might be right to –"_

 _He was cut off by Joey plopping down beside him and kissing him._

 _"You're not alone," he replied._

 _"What are you doing?" Roy asked, a little confused, but kinda hoping he'd do it again._

 _"Distracting you," Joey said, running a thumb along Roy's cheek. Something inside Roy fluttered, a few embers of a fire he thought had died. He kissed Joey, hard, until they were both breathing heavily._

 _Suddenly, he pulled Joey's hand away from his face, pushed it down toward his zipper._

 _"It's gonna take more than just kissing to distract me."_

 _Joey grinned. "I'll do my best."_

 _Clothes came off, limbs tangled, temperatures climbed. For a few minutes, everything was okay._

 _When it was over, Roy pulled away first, dropping back onto the pillows with a sigh._

 _"Thanks," he said. "That was… really good."_

 _Joey laughed. "You make it sound like I made you a sandwich."_

 _Roy joined in the laughter. "Shut up! I'm very vulnerable right now!" He turned serious then. "We only did that because we feel like the last two people on earth, didn't we?"_

 _"Does it matter?" Joey asked._

 _"Kinda cheapens it, don't you think?"_

 _"I dunno." Joey twisted a lock of Roy's hair around his finger. "I've always thought you were cute. I mean, Donna Troy? Absolute goddess. Raven? Really amazing person behind the layers of spooky. And Dick Grayson is a major-league hottie. But you're just as hot in your own way. Your freckles alone made my knees turn to jelly sometimes." He noticed the pained look on Roy's face. "Hey, what's wrong?"_

 _"Can we please not talk about Dick?" Roy asked._

 _Joey nodded in understanding almost immediately. "I'm sorry. I forgot for a second."_

 _"Sometimes I do too."_

 _Roy laced their fingers together, then pulled Joey's arm around his shoulders and buried his face in Joey's collarbone. Joey, for his part, said nothing, just held Roy close, cheek against his hair._

 _They fell asleep that way, inhaling each other's scent, trying not to feel so alone anymore._

* * *

Ryand'r awoke to his sister sitting beside him. The sight of her filled him with warmth.

"Have you been waiting for me?" he asked.

Koriand'r smiled. "What else would I do?"

A smile spread across Ry's face. His sister, he knew, had a lot of other things to do, but it was touching that she would choose him over them.

"Would you like to talk about what happened?" she asked.

Ryand'r must not have been recovered fully, because a cold shudder worked its way through his internal organs.

"I would prefer not to right now," he replied. Deflection was the best response for the situation. "Tell me about what you and your Earth friends have been doing!"

Koriand'r gave him a sympathetic smile. "Would you like to meet one of them?"

That was an unexpected outcome.

"I would love to!"

His sister's Earth friends were interesting, diverse in their colors and patterns, despite nearly all of them being of a single species. They were usually pretty funny, too.

Koriand'r got up and ducked out of the snug for a moment, then came back with an Earth-man in tow. The man had hair as red as any Tamaranean's - though it was shorter and far straighter, light pink skin peppered with golden freckles, and eyes that, while very much like any Earth person's eyes, were still fascinating: white with a spot of black ringed with the green of a distant galaxy in the center of each. People on Earth rarely seemed to appreciate the magnificence of their eyes.

"Ryand'r, this is Roy Harper," Koriand'r said by way of introducing the Earth-man. "Roy, this is the younger of my siblings, Ryand'r."

Roy Harper smiled and held out a hand in greeting. "Hi, nice meeting you!"

Ryand'r stared at the Earth-man's hand, transfixed, instead of taking it. Unlike the other parts of him that weren't obscured by the blanket the Earth-man had wrapped around himself, the hand that was outstretched toward Ryand'r was a deep red metal in place of soft, pink skin. Prosthetics were far from unusual, but the color and detail of the Earth-man's was uncommon and fascinating.

Hastily, Ryand'r recovered his composure and shook Roy Harper's hand.

"Nice to meet you as well!" he said. Vague memories of having seen the Earth-man before came slowly back to him. "You were there, weren't you? When Komand'r was –"

Roy Harper nodded. "She really did a number on us, huh?"

Ryand'r turned his gaze to the floor. "I'm ashamed to have let her get to me."

"Hey," Roy Harper said, "don't be. Nothing that happened was your fault."

"He's right," Koriand'r added. "Komand'r has bested even me in the past. To lose to her once is not to fail, by any means."

"If I had died, I would have failed," Ryand'r countered.

"But did you?"

Though a technicality, Kori's answer wasn't wrong. Ryand'r pulled his sister into an embrace that was too long overdue.

"Thanks to you, I didn't."

* * *

"Tell me everything you can remember about what happened."

Isabel had forgotten the name of the dour man in the cheap suit shortly after he'd told it to her, so she referred to him in her mind as "Detective Boring." She rolled her eyes.

"My friend was taking me home after a trip and we stopped at a motel to rest for the night. We got some takeout, and after dinner, he went to shower. I started hearing this hissing sound from one of the air ducts, so I climbed up to check it out, then started seizing really badly. At least, I think they were bad. I don't get seizures. I blacked out, then woke up here. Where's my friend? Where's Jason? Is he okay?"

"Ms. Ardila," Detective Boring said, straightening his already perfect cuffs, "your so-called 'friend,' Mr. Heed, is a very sick man. Do you have any reason to believe he did this to you?"

What the fuck?

"'Mr. Heed?' Who are you talking about?"

The maybe-lawyer folded his hands and sighed. "Your friend is a criminal operative named Jason Heed, also known as the Red Hood. He's the son of Talia Head al Ghul," mentally, Isabel changed her spelling of Jason's supposed last name from "H-E-E-D" to "H-E-A-D," a last name she'd seen on the news plenty of times, "a member of the terrorist organization known as the League of Assassins. Recently, he broke out of Arkham Asylum, where he was being treated for multiple mood disorders that I am not at liberty to discuss. So I'm going to ask you again, do you have reason to believe he did this to you?"

Something didn't sit right with Isabel. Something about the way the man sounded disgusted when he talked about Jason being mentally ill. He wasn't looking for the truth, he was looking for one answer specifically. Isabel leveled him with the most even stare she could.

"No," she responded. "I have no reason to believe he did this to me, and now I'm done talking to you."

She pointedly hit the call button beside her bed.

The man narrowed his eyes but stood to leave anyway. "Thank you for your time, ma'am."

"It's not like I had that many options, sir," she replied. If the response was a little too sassy, she would just blame the meds. Luckily, the man simply left, brushing past a nurse on the way out.

The nurse smiled brightly as she stepped into the room.

"What can I do for you?" she asked.

Isabel sat up a bit straighter. "Can I get a local newspaper?"

* * *

"The three of us should do something together," Kori suggested. "To get our minds off of things!"

Ryand'r nodded eagerly while Roy agreed more casually.

"Where'd Jason and his date or whatever get to?" Roy added a second later.

Kori's eyebrows scrunched. "Jason left to take Isabel home. He was supposed to meet me after, but I've not heard from him since."

Roy shook his head. "Typical. He's been looking for another excuse to ditch us."

Something about that didn't feel right. When Apollo had come to them with a call to arms, Jason had seemed sad not to answer it. He'd been determined to return as soon as he could. Jason, for all his faults, was honorable. Disappearing seemed out of character.

"No," she huffed, "I don't think so this time. We should go check on him."

"If he doesn't want to be found, we're gonna have a hell of a time trying to find him," Roy said, but Kori could tell the ice was cracking.

"I think that sounds fun!" Ryand'r chimed in, eyes lighting up. "I love mysteries!"

The two Tamaraneans turned to Roy, fixing him with nearly identical expressions.

Roy sighed. "Okay! Let's track him down!"

Ryand'r grinned at his sister while Roy mumbled about how going after his former best friend's renegade younger brother was not his idea of a vacation.

* * *

The wind that ripped through the streets with curved, steel claws was probably fairly cold, at least, by the standards of Earth-people. To Ryand'r, it merely stung. Roy Harper, however, shivered violently between him and his sister.

"Are you okay?" Koriand'r shouted over the wind at the Earth-man. Her hand was wrapped around his as though he were in danger of blowing away.

"I'm f-f-fine," he replied, his hand clutching Kori's as though she were an anchor. "N-not that much cold-d-der than spa-a-a-ace with y-you."

Kori's hair flared a little brighter, and Roy Harper leaned into her, his body shivering a little less. But his skin still looked like it was freezing, his hair whipping in the wind hard enough to gouge someone's eyes out. Ryand'r found himself wrapping his hand around Roy Harper's empty one, hoping that warming he metal would also warm the man. Roy Harper turned to look at him, surprised, but smiling. He squeezed Ry's hand like a silent "thank-you." His shivering lessened greatly.

"How do we find your friend?" Ryand'r asked, raising his voice more than he was used to so the wind wouldn't snatch it and carry it away.

Kori's eyebrows knit together, whether in confusion or just deep thought Ryand'r couldn't say.

"I think –" she began.

"HEY!" a new voice interrupted.

The trio turned. A person clad in black, purple, and yellow was running toward them, which seemed less efficient than flying, something Ryand'r thought people who wore capes were supposed to be able to do.

"Bat-Girl?" Koriand'r exclaimed.

"What are you guys doing here?" the Bat-Girl asked, slightly out of breath by the time she reached them. "And where's Jason?"

Ryand'r studied the Bat-Girl. She was incredibly short, for one thing. She had brown skin and gold hair that were mostly covered in layers of black and purple armor, including a helmet with two pointed horns and the (very puzzling) black and purple cape that most likely had nothing to do with flight. On her chest was emblazoned a yellow bird-like creature that was shaped, Ryand'r realized, similar to the shapes the helmet and cape gave the girl.

"You haven't seen him?" Roy Harper asked.

The Bat-Girl put a hand on her hip. "Why would _I_ have seen him? He's like, _your_ friend now or whatever."

"He came to Gotham about a week ago to take a friend home," Koriand'r said. "We've not seen him since, but thought he might be here."

"I'm pretty sure if the Red Hood had been in Gotham for a week, somebody on my radar would've noticed."

Roy Harper stepped forward, pulling Ryand'r and Koriand'r with him. "What if the Red Hood _isn't_ in Gotham? What if it's just Jason?"

The Bat-Girl's eyes widened in what looked like understanding, but still she asked, "How do you mean?"

"I mean, what if he's here, but as a civilian? He said he escaped from Arkham. Resurfacing as the Red Hood would be dangerous, he said so himself. If he wanted to move around without attracting attention, he'd do it out of costume."

The Bat-Girl smiled, but not in a way that seemed at all pleased. "Great."

She tossed her head. "If you wanna look for him, I won't stop you. The usual gang of idiots and I have a clown problem to deal with."

Then, she simply turned and walked away.

"You think we'll end up involved in that?" Koriand'r asked neither of them in particular. "Something always seems to happen when we come to Gotham."

A different thing was bothering Ryand'r.

"Why did she say 'clown problem?'" he asked. "I didn't think clowns were an invasive species?"

Kori snorted. "In Gotham, at least, you could say that they are."

Roy Harper didn't seem to see the humor.

"Guys," he said, "if the Joker is doing something, it stands to reason that that's where we'll find Jason."

Kori's eyes widened in realization. "X'hal! You're right! Bat-Girl, wait!"

She wrapped an arm around Roy Harper's waist and took off in the direction the Bat-Girl had gone. Not entirely sure what was happening, but happy to have seemingly sparked a realization, at least, Ryand'r followed.

* * *

Laughter filled the streets. It was the most horrifying sound the boy had heard in the sixteen years he'd lived in Gotham. This was not the happy laughter he was used to hearing at neighborhood block parties and the like. This was the desperate, screeching laughter of people who had lost their minds.

He pulled the bright yellow bandana tighter over his mouth and nose. He wanted no chance to breathe in the stuff that was making the people around him, people like his own parents, succumb to hysteria on such a large scale. He dug through his desk until he found an old pair of safety goggles from a science class, then slipped them on. As long as the crunchy, aging elastic held up, they would keep foreign substances out of his eyes.

Next, he needed to protect his arms.

"Sorry, Mom," he said under his breath as he slipped her favorite jacket, a sturdy red leather one, off its hanger and over his shoulders. It had held up longer than he'd been alive, and the smell of his mom's favorite lotion clung to it, comforting his screaming nerves a bit.

Finally, he pulled on the gloves he'd originally gotten for dirt biking. He hadn't worn them for a few years, but they still fit, and the padding was thick, designed to protect his palms if he wiped out. Perfect in case the night went sideways; he didn't feel like digging gravel out of his flesh.

He slipped out the window onto the fire escape and shimmied down as quietly as he could. Something that laughed a little too hard was stirring at the end of the alley. As it shuffled forward, an amber street light caught its face: a garish smile was slashed across gray, bloody skin; hair damp with sweat – _or something else_ , he thought with a shudder – clinging to the person's forehead in wet curls. His breathing had slowed so much it almost stopped when the person/thing locked eyes with him, and then it did something none of the others had. It spoke.

"Hi there!" it said with an amused chuckle. "What's your name?"

And Duke Thomas screamed.

* * *

Everyone turned, looking toward the source of the scream.

Batgirl's hand flew to her ear. "Something's going down in the Bowery," she said. "I'm en route, but this might require backup."

She turned, gaze flicking back and forth between Kori and Ry. "Can I get a ride, or am I walking?"

Ryand'r extended a hand toward her, which she accepted without hesitation.

A persistent shiver had Kori's entire spine tingling. She didn't know how she knew it, but she knew that where the source of the scream was, Jason would also be. She held Roy a little closer.

"Stay behind me until we know what is going on," Kori ordered. Batgirl immediately made a sound of protest.

"This is my city!" she complained. "I can handle it!"

"I am the oldest," Kori replied, "which means I'm in charge."

Now Roy was the one protesting. " _I'm_ the oldest!"

"The oldest who is also more durable than a human!" Kori amended.

There was grumbling, but no more protesting.

They alighted at the mouth of the alley where it sounded like the scream had come from. Judging by the fight that was going down there, it was the right place.

A bent, vaguely-human shape was menacing a small, definitely-human person. The smaller combatant was dodging and weaving around the larger one's attacks as well as they could, but every time the smaller one got away, the larger one was still within or nearly within reach. It was like watching a cat toy with a mouse.

Kori spread her arms protectively in front of her brother and the two humans behind her, trying to keep her breathing steady. She didn't want to attack in case the suspicion that was building inside her turned out to be correct.

"Jason?" she called. "Stop this. Now."

The larger figure turned, and what the streetlight revealed it to be was horrible. It was Jason - straight out of a nightmare. His clothing was not his own; instead, his pants were red and black, the color split vertically down the center. The jacket he wore – unzipped to reveal his bare torso – was split the same way, but with the colors switched. A joker from a deck of playing cards hung from a chain around his neck, as though to mark whose property he was, though his face made that seem extraneous: his eyes were bloodshot and unfocused, his skin pale and ashen. Rivulets of dried blood ran from his eyes and nose, and his lips were painted in a coal-black smile, while an actual grin split his face. A crowbar dangled from one of his white-gloved hands. He tossed his head back and laughed.

It almost sounded more like sobbing.

The person Jason had been attacking scrambled away. He appeared to be a skinny, teenage Earth-boy in makeshift protective gear who hadn't planned to run into the particular conflict he was currently in.

Behind her, Kori felt heat on her skin.

"Ryand'r," she cautioned, "no. Not until we try to save him."

Her brother's starbolts obligingly extinguished.

Jason laughed again. It was like a shriek.

"Save me?" he laughed. "What's to save? I feel _delightful!_ In fact, I'm more than willing to share the love!"

As he pulled something from his pocket, Batgirl dodged around Kori's arm. They both unleashed their projectiles at approximately the same time, and the small sphere Jason threw met the batarang Batgirl threw in midair. Both exploded at the same time, the batarang spewing a mass of green goo that enveloped the smoke that had begun to flow from the sphere.

"And the gooparang scores again!" Batgirl shouted in victory.

From Kori's other side, a bottle flew through the air and smashed in Jason's face. Jason looked a bit dazed, but otherwise fine. Roy let out a small sigh of disappointment.

"You wanna hurt me, Harper?" Jason laugh-shrieked. "Try a little harder!"

"Not a problem!" Roy shouted back.

"No!" Kori cried. "There has to be another way!"

The unknown boy popped up beside her.

"The real him is still there, I can tell," he said. "You just have to reach it, and throwing bottles at him isn't gonna do that."

"Good to know."

"HEY!" Jason yelled. "I have to kill that kid! There are no bats to catch you, little bird-kid. They never do! You'll just fall. Splat!"

"What is he talking about?" the kid asked.

Kori looked at him for a moment. The boy was outfitted in red, green, and yellow, looking - very vaguely - like a Robin.

"Himself," she replied. "Don't worry, we won't let him hurt you."

* * *

Roy never really considered himself a fan of zombie movies. Being in one was even worse.

Jason shuffled toward them, dressed like a homeless mall Goth, a crowbar dangling from his right hand at an awkward angle, limping more than slightly, but laughing all the while.

"You're all gonna die," he giggled.

"Can it, edgelord," Batgirl replied, slinging another batarang at him. As he tried to dodge, it caught him in the knee, green goo exploding everywhere, then freezing solid. He looked down at his frozen legs for a second, then tugged against the green, frozen gunk he'd been doused with, unable to budge. He looked back up, face stricken with panic.

"This isn't funny."

"The goopafreezearang is no joke," Batgirl said, body language implying she was smirking.

"Not _funny_!" Jason repeated, struggling harder. Something popped, and he cried out in pain, but didn't stop. "I have to do this! Don't you know the world's gone mad?"

Roy shook his head grimly. "I think it's just you, man."

Jason laughed again. "I'll find a way! I always, always do."

Two thuds at the end of the alley drew everyone's attention. First, Robin emerged from the shadows. Then, Nightwing. _Dick._ Roy's heart twisted in his chest.

"Batgirl, we got your call," Dick said, straight to business. "Looks like you caught somebody. Good, now we can start working on a cure for whatever strain of venom the Joker's cooked up now and fix this."

 _They can't see his face,_ Roy realized. Or at least, they couldn't until Jason turned around, vertebrae popping, tilted his head to the side, and mused, "Fix this? It's never not been broken!" before dissolving into laughter again.

Behind the mask, Roy was sure Dick's eyes had widened. "Jason?"

"Todd's the latest addition to Joker's menagerie?" Robin said with a snort. "Talk about dramatic irony."

"Why don't you come closer and find out how it feels?" Jason said, trying to brandish the crowbar like a sword, but looking a little pathetic with the unnatural way his wrist bent. "Laughter is the best medicine, you know!"

"And an overdose of any medicine only makes you sicker," Dick replied.

"Little Bird, that's enough," Kori interrupted.

Jason's head snapped back around to stare at her, wild-eyed.

"No," he said softly, shaking his head. "I… I can't."

He actually sounded like himself.

 _She called him 'little bird,'_ Roy realized. A name nobody else called him. A display of love.

Roy stepped out from behind her.

"Yes, you can," he said. Then, the nickname he'd been looking for tumbled from his mouth: "Jaybird, you're stronger than any stupid clown."

Jason shook his head harder, tears slipping from his eyes. "Stop! Don't call me that!"

Dick joined in. "Little Wing, do you seriously want to be the Joker's pet?"

" _Stop it!_ " Jason screamed. " _Stopitstopitstopit!"_

"Jaybird, breathe."

"Little Bird, you will be okay."

"Earth-boy, from what I hear, you're a great warrior, capable of overcoming anything. Even whatever clown-themed mind control this is."

Jason kept screaming until "stop it," turned into "stop me." Then, with a shuddering breath, he coughed out the words, "help me." After that, his eyes rolled back in his head and Kori barely caught him before he collapsed.

* * *

He was too late. Again.

By the time Bruce reached the coordinates Stephanie had provided, Jason's bloody form was limp in the arms of a couple of Dick's friends. A Tamaranean whom Bruce had never seen before was melting some manner of frozen gelatinous substance off of Jason's legs while Stephanie helped scrape it away. Dick and Damian stood a few feet away, talking in hushed tones to a teenage boy who looked as though he was going to be sick.

Bruce blocked them all out, walking toward his second son as though he were underwater and the tide was pushing him away. Still, he eventually reached Jason's side and knelt down, Koriand'r shifting to make room for him. Bruce pulled his cowl from his face in order to truly _see_ , unmodified, his son's face.

And he saw. Saw the bruises, the blood, the broken bones. Saw where Jason had been electrocuted, and where he'd put too much weight on injuries that had already been sustained. Saw all the sick ways in which the Joker had marked him like a piece of property or set him up to die of exposure.

He reached out and wiped the painted smile from Jason's lips.

"Batgirl," he ordered. Stephanie looked up immediately at the sound of her codename. "Call Doctor Thompkins and tell her to meet us at the manor."

He drew Jason into his arms, feeling his son's weak pulse fluttering against his arm. This time, Jason would live.

 _He hardly remembered sifting through the wreckage, lifting away scorched chunks of wall that, by all accounts, should've been too heavy while smoke and dust stung at his face and lungs. But he remembered when he finally found the boy, clear as day. He'd kept his composure remarkably well._

 _He checked about a hundred times for a pulse, though no part of him really expected to find one. The blue tinge of hypoxia to the boy's skin was evident._

 _But he_ couldn't _give up, goddamnit! No matter how cold the boy's skin was, no matter how unresponsive, he couldn't give up now. Couldn't admit failure._

 _He gave chest compressions until he thought his arms might give out, then gave more. Nothing. No movement, no sound, no change, no sign of life._

 _Then, Batman broke._

* * *

"It's a miracle he's alive at all," Leslie announced after performing her initial examination. "He's dehydrated and hypothermic, his right ankle, right wrist, and several ribs have not only been broken, but continually had pressure applied to them after the breakage. He's lucky he doesn't have a punctured lung. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Don't expect him to wake up any time soon. Between the physical trauma and whatever psychological trauma I'm sure he's sustained, he needs to just rest for a while."

"But he _will_ wake up?" Bruce asked. It was eerie seeing him in a situation he had no control over. In that moment, he wasn't Batman, knight of Gotham, bane to criminals and seeker of justice. He was Bruce Wayne, father. It was definitely one of the top ten weirdest things Steph had ever witnessed.

"It's almost guaranteed," Leslie answered with her reassuring Leslie Smile. "I'll get some equipment in here as soon as I can to replenish some of his lost fluids, monitor heartrate, and help him breathe easier. He's going to be okay, Bruce."

She stood up and wrapped her bony arms around him in an extremely motherly hug. He closed his eyes and hugged her back. Steph turned away, suddenly feeling awkward about staring at such a private moment. Bruce would probably "gently instruct" her later to not mention this to anyone else. Steph felt it was her civic duty to tell Jason all about it when he woke up.

Starfire sighed, reminding everyone that there were more people in the room. "It feels too soon to be sitting by another bedside with nothing to do but wait."

Arsenal gently squeezed her shoulder. "He's as tough as the rest of us. He'll be back to acting like he doesn't like us before too long."

"I thought you didn't like him either?"

"I think I get him now."

Steph turned away from that conversation as well. It didn't exactly feel like something that should be eavesdropped upon. She decided the best course of action would be to get some air.

Outside the room, a slightly smaller, somewhat more butch version of Starfire was pacing around the hallway, a foot off the floor.

"What are they saying?" Starfire Jr. asked when they noticed Steph.

"Basically that he'll be in a coma for a while because his entire body is a patchwork of serious injuries," Steph replied.

The alien nodded. "Ah."

"Uh, so I have to go. There are a lot more people in trouble out there, and I'm not gonna make the guys handle it themselves. It was nice to meet you?" She phrased the last part as a question, because did it really count as meeting someone if you didn't actually learn their name?

"If you'd like more help, I would love to come with you!"

Steph wasn't quite sure how to handle this. Disappearing was one thing. Taking another, random person with you when you disappeared was another.

"You know what?" Steph found herself saying. "Why not! Consequences later, let's go!"

* * *

"I don't know what to do, Alfred," Bruce was saying. "He's been through hell, but there's no telling what that's done to him."

"Master Bruce," Alfred replied, always the calm one, "he is still your son, you know."

"And it kills me that I can't help him! But he won't listen!"

There was a pause. Then, "I know you're there."

Roy shoved the door to Bruce's study open, something inside him burning.

"Maybe you're the one who needs to listen," he said.

Alfred and Bruce were both looking at him with expressions he couldn't read. Roy set his jaw, folded his arms, and matched their stares.

Bruce sighed. "And what does Jason have to say that I haven't heard already?"

If he didn't know better, Roy might've asked if Bruce was kidding.

"Do you want me to start with the part where he was brutally murdered by an irredeemable psychopath?" Roy asked. "Or the part where you didn't do _anything_ about it? Should I mention how many that psychopath has massacred since then? Or should I stick to the latest development where he kidnapped, tortured, and brainwashed _your son,_ who's now comatose because you can't see that some people are _beyond_ saving?"

Bruce's fists were clenched, but his face remained calm.

"Roy," he said, tone even and not a little patronizing, "you need to stop projecting before you say something you'll regret."

Roy's eyes were blazing.

"Do I? I didn't realize I just, what, made all that up? My apologies! I guess it _isn't_ your fault that your son's _in a fucking coma!_ "

"Master Harper," Alfred began, but Bruce held up a hand.

"Roy," he said. "I'm sorry for what happened to Lian. I am willing to look past your actions in the wake of her death for now, but I will not sit here while you blame me for what happened to Jason."

"Or what?" Roy snapped. "What will you do? Throw me in Arkham like all the other problems you won't deal with? Do it! I'm done sitting back and letting people die!"

" _Both_ of you need to stop this right now," Alfred interjected. It was almost scary to hear the usually-calm butler's voice raised for once. "This conversation will resolve nothing."

Roy exhaled slowly and turned toward the door, then paused and looked over his shoulder. Projecting or not, he _saw_ Jason now, and he wouldn't turn away if the kid needed him.

"If I see the Joker," he said, "the bastard is toast. Whether you like it or not."

 **A/N:**

 **Whoo! Back on track (for the time being!) I've made a lot of headway over winter break, and I am very proud of myself. Executive dysfunction who? (Funky Facts: this is currently the longest chapter I have written, and the longest single Word document I've ever written. I don't know how I'm ever going to write my thesis.)  
-seriously, why the FUCK isn't Guardian Angel a Halloween costume? (probably because the industry is full of COWARDS.) Guess I'll buy an angel costume and flaming sword separately? laaame. Everybody's just gonna assume I'm supposed to be She-Ra. step up your game, Party City.  
-I promise you, Roy/Joey isn't the most off-the-wall pairing I could've come up with. If one of them had been a chick, it would be canon. #stoplettingstraightwhitemenwritecomics  
-out of all the species in the DCU, humans actually have some of the most complex variations of body types and colorings, and I think about that all the damn time. WHERE IS THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL BIODIVERSITY, DC? WHERE IS IT?  
-apparently, Talia sometimes goes by the last name "Head" (pronounced "heed") and passing Jason off as her son would be pretty convenient for Batman and Co. I'm not the only one with this idea, I'm definitely not the first one to write it, so shoutout to the Talia-Adopted-Jason Squad!  
-this is the last of Isabel for a while, but hopefully not for forever. I have been a staunch Isabel Stan since I first read RHatO, and I'm pleased as punch that you guys seem to like her.  
-DUKE THOMAS, BABEY. He deserves to be in more stuff, and if I have to be the change I wish to see in the world, then I will, by gum!  
-Jason's Harley Quinn outfit was modeled after one of Harley's (many) Injustice looks and designed with the express purpose of leaving Jason susceptible to hypothermia. What, did you think the Joker was just gonna not kill him? Nah!  
-me, observing Steph's custom batarangs: beautiful, amazing, talented, showstopping  
-"hypoxia" is a blue tinge to the skin, typically of the lips and fingertips, that indicates major oxygen deprivation, usually as a result of drowning or - in Jasn's case - asphyxiation. It's also the name of my Addams Family self-insert character!  
-while Roy does have some valid points, he's also definitely projecting and being a little irrational. there are no such things as perfect characters. except maybe Bow from She-Ra.  
Thanks for reading, I love you all. Please leave comments, my ego can't handle not being constantly praised.**


	9. Life Would Be An Awfully Big Adventure

Red. Red, red, red, _red, redredredred all over the ground, dripping from his hands, trailing from a sea made of the bodies of everyone he knew, leaving him stranded on a tiny island splattered in red._

 _I did this,_ Jason knew, instinctively, as he stared at his hands. He was a murderer, and now he'd murdered everything good in addition to the bad.

He tore his eyes from the red, the bodies, their eyes looking toward him, empty, yet pleading all the same. Instead, he looked to the island's sole occupant aside from him: an old tree, black silhouetted against the angry, red sky. Its branches reached out to him, welcoming arms offering solace. He recognized the tree as one he'd climbed often as a kid, whenever he needed a break from the gloom of Wayne Manor.

He hoisted himself high into its branches and rested his head against the smooth bark of the trunk. For the moment, he could breathe again.

"What do I do?" he asked the air around him. The only response was the old tree, creaking in the wind.

Jason raised his head. For the first time, he noticed the rope hanging from the branch next to him, and he reached for it with shaking fingers. As he twisted it in his hands, he couldn't ignore the smears of red he left on the twisted fibers.

"No." He shook his head. "No, this isn't the answer. It _can't_ be."

He smelled the lilies before he noticed she was sitting on the end of the branch.

"No," he repeated, tears stinging in his eyes – the traitors. "This isn't how it ends, is it?"

* * *

"Something's happening," Stephanie said, eyes glued to the machine monitoring Jason's vitals. "Dr. Thompkins, what do we do?"

Leslie looked closer at the machine, blinking a few times, not sure that she was really seeing what her eyes told her she was seeing.

"Oh my," was all she could think to say.

* * *

"That's what I've come to talk to you about," she replied. "Right now, the choice is yours. You aren't mine yet."

"I might as well be," Jason said. "I'm some resurrected freak, a cosmic mistake. I'm not even supposed to be here."

She exhaled slowly. It was strange. Jason hadn't thought she could look sheepish or embarrassed, and yet…

"That's the thing. Your resurrection wasn't the mistake. Your death was. You came back because you were meant to live."

And now it felt like she'd punched him.

* * *

"He isn't _crashing_ ," Leslie was explaining, "but his heartbeat is becoming increasingly irregular. I've never seen anything like this before."

The blood was rushing in Bruce's ears at a deafening volume. Suddenly, he didn't care about the past whatsoever. He just wanted his son.

"Is he… glowing?" he heard Stephanie ask.

* * *

"But – " Jason spluttered, "but you _took_ me! You said I had to go! And now you're telling me I wasn't supposed to die?"

She looked away for a moment.

"Yes," she said. "I did. And it wasn't until after that I realized I made a mistake. I can't do anything now but regret and apologize."

"All these years, feeling out of place because I thought I was supposed to be dead, when I was supposed to be alive anyway the entire time? Are humans that much of a joke to you?"

Her face hardened. "Of course not. But your story has always written itself in the most unpredictable ways. Your death was the most unfortunate consequence of that."

Jason looked away. It felt like some kind of blockage inside him had been cleared away. He couldn't hold on to the anger no matter how much he wanted to.

"So," he asked, "what happens now?"

* * *

Steph's gaze bore into Jason. He was definitely glowing - blue, mostly, but a current of green was growing stronger as a current of gold faded, and a few purples glowed around the edges.

"Definitely odd," Leslie commented.

* * *

"You have two options," she replied. "You can take my hand and leave all this behind, no more pain, or guilt, or fear. No more feeling like you have to run away. Or, you can live, for a long, long time, the way you were meant to. You can face decisions that will tear you apart, you can feel all the heartbreak and confusion and love a human life can feel, and you can find out who you were meant to be. Either way, the choice is yours."

Jason didn't hesitate.

"I want to live."

She held up a finger. "I have one condition."

"I'm listening."

"You have to _live_. Form relationships. Feel an emotion or two. Stop being so afraid. Can you do that?"

Could he? Trust, for him, was in short supply.

"Yes," he decided.

She smiled, and a pair of twin stars, almost like eyes, appeared behind her.

"Good," she said. "Now wake up, Jason Todd. Or you'll remain in the Dreaming forever."

The tree dissolved and he was falling backward through space, the sky darkening, the scenery melting, until he landed, sooner and softer than he thought he would.

Jason opened his eyes. He recognized his old room, felt the softness of flannel sheets tucked around him.

"Holy shit," a voice said, "he just woke up."

Then, Jason felt himself being swept into a familiar pair of arms, heard shaky breathing in his ear.

"Bruce," another voice warned.

"No," Jason croaked. "It's okay."

He wrapped his arms around his father, and they simply held each other for a moment, until Bruce whispered, "I thought I lost you again."

Jason's eyes burned. "No such luck, Dad."

* * *

"Kori. We should talk," Dick said. It wasn't a request. Kori didn't care.

The evening breeze blew through her hair as she sat on the roof of Wayne Manor, looking for the first signs of Spring's green in the fading light. For once, she just wanted to be alone for a bit.

"What do we have to talk about?" she asked. "You've already told me you don't love me anymore, and I have gotten over it."

Dick sat down on the roof beside her.

"I never said I don't love you, I just… started having second thoughts about our relationship. We were at that point when marriage starts to be discussed, and I panicked. I won't make excuses, I'm just sorry."

Kori felt oddly cold. "So am I." She turned to look at him, then regretted doing so; she wanted to run her fingers through his hair and wrap her arms around him. Instead, she asked, "Is it true?"

"What?"

"That you threw Roy in a mental hospital and left him there?"

A shadow fell over Dick's face. "He was a danger to himself and others, Kori. When he broke out, he killed a man!"

"He needed you to listen! Lian _died!_ But did you even try to understand how he was feeling? If you wish to talk to anyone, talk to Roy. That is, if he wants to talk to you."

Kori flew away before Dick could say anything else. She didn't want an argument, she just wanted the man she loved back. He had always been the less social of the two of them, but now he seemed more closed-off than ever, like a darkness was consuming him that she couldn't burn away.

" _KORI!_ " Roy shouted from a window. " _KORI, GET IN HERE!"_

She couldn't read his tone, so she just flew as fast as she could until she reached him. Roy's eyes were wide and he was breathing heavily, like he'd been running to find her.

"Come on!" he said, gesturing quickly to her.

"What's wrong?" she asked as she climbed through the window into a second-floor hallway.

"I don't know if you'd believe me," he replied, grabbing her hand, then almost running down the hall. Toward… Jason's room.

He threw the door open, then moved so she could go in first. Kori went cautiously, with no idea what to expect. It had been nearly a month since his disappearance and subsequent reemergence under the Joker's mind control. She hardly dared to hope he had recovered already.

The outcome was a pleasant surprise: Jason was awake, sitting up in bed. The color had returned to his skin, as had the light to his eyes. When he saw her, his smile was real, if a bit confused.

"You came back?" he asked.

"We never left," she replied. "Stephanie has been a wonderful hostess."

"Why?"

"Because I, at least, consider you a friend. My brother wanted to meet you, and one of us has to give Roy a ride, so the two of them stayed as well."

Jason scoffed. If Kori didn't know better, she would have assumed he did it jokingly.

"Sorry I couldn't help you save the world," he said, smiling.

Kori sat down beside him on his bed. "I think I can forgive you this time."

She couldn't help it, she pulled him into a hug. Had circumstances been better, he might have been her brother-in-law already. She felt as protective of him as though he were anyway.

Jason, to Kori's surprise, returned the hug.

"Don't think I'm going soft or anything," he said defensively. "I'm just cold, and you're very warm."

Kori ruffled his hair. "Got it."

* * *

Stephanie the Bat-Girl was a very interesting person. Within hours of knowing him, she managed to convince Ryand'r to fly her across town to get milkshakes. Within days, she was braiding his hair, and they were going on regular patrols together with her friends before the first week ended. Ryand'r officially had what Earth-people called "a bestie."

Yet, when she, rather than Kori, was the one who told him Jason had woken up, Ryand'r couldn't help being surprised.

"Of course I'd tell you!" she'd remarked at his surprise. "We're friends! Just, maybe give him some time to un-disorient before going to meet him. He's known for being prickly, and you're… the opposite."

Ryand'r nodded. "Gotcha. What would the opposite of prickly be?"

Stephanie thought for a minute before replying, "I can't think of a good opposite that doesn't sound horribly wrong. The more I think about it, the worse it gets."

Ryand'r appreciated the face she was pulling, which crinkled her nose adorably.

"No adjectives needed, then!" he replied. "You know what I've always wanted to do?"

Stephanie tilted her head to the side. "What?"

Ry's eyes lit up at the prospect of crossing something else off his Earth-vacation bucket list. "Grocery shopping!"

* * *

Jason was pretty decent with crutches, as it turned out. They dug into his armpits uncomfortably, but they were better than putting weight on his still-healing ankle.

Being back home was uncomfortable, to make a complete understatement. The haunted hallways of Wayne Manor loomed around him, cold and unforgiving, judging his every move – past, present, and future. As the smells of food and the chatter of conversation drifted up the stairs toward him, he felt a pang in his chest.

 _This isn't home anymore_ , he realized, _it's just somewhere I used to live._

He wheeled around and limped back to his room. There was no time for self-pity, things were moving faster than he'd expected. And the memories persisted all the while, laughing and screaming and pain. No matter what Death had said about living life, it wouldn't be easy. Not while the memories persisted.

He grabbed one of the thickest books from his shelf – a collection of three Eva Ibbotson books in one, the kind of lighthearted fantasy he'd enjoyed in grade school – and let the other books collapse into the empty space left by it. Balancing the book and his crutch at the same time, he limped over to the bed and deposited the former on his nightstand, then slid the drawer open and rooted around until he found a pen and a blank piece of notepaper.

He ripped the paper in half, scrawled a quick note on one half, then tucked it into the pages of his book like a bookmark. He wrote a different note on the other half, limped back to the shelf, and tucked it into the space left by the book he'd taken. Maybe it would've been less melodramatic to just leave it on the nightstand, but he needed to buy himself as much time as possible.

He looked around the room and sighed. How could a place be so familiar but completely foreign at the same time?

He shook his head and dug around under the bed until he came up with a backpack, then shoved his book, some bottles of water, and the meds Leslie had given him into it. Next, he forced the window open and tossed the bag through, followed by his crutches. Taking a deep breath, he climbed onto the windowsill.

 _Okay, don't look down. Just drop and roll._

Then, he let go.

* * *

Roy knocked lightly on the door to Jason's room, not wanting to intrude on whatever brooding was happening, but pretty sure Jason would want lunch. A chilly draft blew from beneath the door.

"Jay?" he called. "You okay? Alfred's making grilled cheese!"

No response. Dr. Thompkins had warned them his medications might cause fatigue. Still, Roy found himself opening the door.

The room was empty; no Jason, no crutches, nothing. Just curtains blowing back and forth in front of an open window.

Roy turned and ran, feet practically flying down the stairs, heading toward the kitchen.

"He's _gone_ ," he panted as soon as he burst through the door. All eyes were on him. "Jason's gone, and the window was open."

Kori and Dick ran past him, while Damian remained seated where he was, grating cheese in what looked like a disdainful way.

"Tt."

Roy turned and followed the creaking floorboards back to Jason's room. Dick was staring out the window, Kori looking out over his shoulder.

"He definitely left that way," Dick was saying. "Should've seen that coming."

"Even with his broken ankle?" Kori asked.

"Do you honestly think that would stop him?" Roy countered, announcing his presence. Dick and Kori turned around.

"Okay, smartass, where is he?" Dick asked, crossing his arms.

Roy matched his stance. "Even if I knew, why would I tell you?"

Dick sighed in exasperation. "Do you not realize how dangerous he is? People get hurt when he's around. Even if his intentions are good, the longer he's out there, the more likely there is to be a bloodbath following."

Kori opened her mouth to jump into the conversation, but Roy wasn't quite finished.

"You know what?" Roy took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly. "I'm not getting into this."

He strolled into the room, then turned away from Dick's piercing gaze. If his former best friend had anything to say, Roy was ignoring it. Instead, he looked at the bookshelf that covered most of a wall. An irregularity caught his eye. The end of one row was collapsing to the side – the contrast to the neatness of the other shelves was obvious. Roy walked toward the shelves, reaching for the collapsing books. He ran a finger over the tops of them, then a different finger over the empty spot on the shelf. The books were dusty, the shelf wasn't.

"Kori," he said, "I think I found something."

He continued feeling around the bare spot on the shelf until his fingers touched a piece of paper. Instinctively, they curled around it, and he drew it out.

"I agree," Kori said, "it looks as though you've found something."

The paper merely read, "Sorry."

* * *

"He wouldn't have said sorry if he were staying in Gotham," Roy insisted as he paced back and forth, running his fingers through his hair, deep in thought. "The Jason I know would never apologize for going after the Joker. He must be somewhere else."

Kori tapped her fingers against the windowsill, thinking just as hard. He wouldn't have returned to the island, either. That didn't seem like him. But why leave a note at all, unless he wanted to be found? Apologies in general were unlike Jason.

"I know where he is," she realized aloud. "Roy, let's find my brother and I will explain on the way."

Dick spluttered. "Are you seriously just going to leave?"

Kori cast him a look over her shoulder.

"Yes," she said. "I am. It's been lovely, er, not catching up."

"Kori! He's still my brother, and I'm still worried about him!"

"You should've taken that up with him," Roy replied. Unlike Kori, he didn't look over his shoulder as he left.

"I… really dislike not feeling like I can trust him," Kori said once Dick was out of earshot.

Roy shrugged. "Don't feel bad, it's not your job to be Dick's conscience."

Kori sighed. "I still can't help feeling like I could've done more. For all of you. And myself."

The answer Kori had been trying to find about herself was right there, within her reach, she was sure. And part of her was certain that Dick was involved.

Roy put an arm around her shoulder. He didn't have to say anything. He did, however, say, "Let's go find Ryand'r."

* * *

"You need to _leave_ ," the Essence insisted.

Jason Todd's two not-quite-friends and one complete stranger were dangerously close to her mountain, and seemed intent on climbing it.

"We _need_ to find Jason," the woman countered, a challenge in her voice. "And we believe he's with you."

The Essence could envision no scenario wherein allowing them to find Jason would end well.

"Unfortunate," the Essence replied. "Outsiders are not permitted."

"Kori and I have been here before," the shorter of the men interjected. "Where was that rule then?"

 _Presumptuous brat_.

"Where is your guide now?" the Essence asked.

"That's what we're trying to find out!"

The Essence narrowed her eyes, grudgingly accepting that they were unlikely to leave without answers. "He's safe. That's all you need to know."

But, as was typical of mortals, the trio was nowhere near backing down.

"We are going to find him," the woman said. "No matter what you intend to do about it."

The Essence allowed her physical form to dissolve into a building storm, but left her voice behind long enough to reply, "Then prove your worth."

* * *

"I can't feel my fingers," Roy gasped, shuddering from the cold. He looked down to make sure his hands were still there.

"Just hold on," Ryand'r said. His hair flared brighter and for a second, Roy did feel warmer. But the heat vanished as soon as it had come. The wind was howling all around them, throwing snow almost horizontally toward the trio. The Essence of the All-Caste wanted them off her mountain.

"Ryand'r," Kori cautioned, "the storm is blocking out the sun. We aren't absorbing much at all. Please, be careful."

Even as she said it, she was keeping a hand on Roy's shoulder, sending small pulses of quickly stolen warmth across his skin.

Roy dropped to the ground, pulling his knees into his chest, trying to conserve as much warmth as possible. Ry and Kori knelt beside him.

"What's wrong?" Kori asked, even though it was obvious. Roy knew she meant, "How can I help?" But he was beyond the help she or her brother could give.

"We have to figure out what she wants," he said. "We won't reach the top unless we prove we're worthy to."

"How are we meant to do that?" Ry asked, eyebrows knitting in confusion.

Was Roy supposed to figure that out, too? He was too cold to think. He shrugged, but it just felt like more shivering.

Kori snapped her fingers in front of his face. "Stay with me. We have to prove to the Essence that we deserve to find Jason! So talk to me. _Why_ do we want to find Jason?"

"Because he, he disapp-p-ppeared without an explan-n-nation."

"But why do you care?"

"Don't like n-not hhhaving answers."

Kori's face was getting blurry, but the blur looked annoyed, probably.

"That's not the real reason."

Roy clenched his fists, trying to hold on to his concentration.

"Be-e _cause_! He's _family!_ He's – he's p-p-prac-ctically my brother, and he n-needs to know he- he's not alone. He-e-e pushes everyone away to pr-protect himself-f, but when you love someone, you don't let them go!"

Warmth was beginning to spread outward from his chest. It even felt like the wind was slowing its assault.

"Oh my God," he realized. "I'm an asshole."

* * *

He wasn't one hundred percent certain, but if asked, Ryand'r would have said that Roy Harper had started glowing _before_ he fainted.

The second the Earth-man had declared, "oh my god, I'm an asshole," a nimbus of indigo (or was it violet?) light shot through with pure blue and red had surrounded him. Then, he went limp and lost consciousness, but the nimbus only intensified.

Ryand'r looked at his sister. "What do we do?"

Koriand'r was gazing down at the Earth-man's face with concern, brushing her fingers along his skin.

"It's odd," she said. "He doesn't feel as though he's freezing. I think… he's proven himself."

The storm did seem to be easing, but it was a different kind of storm than the sandstorms and tidal waves on Tamaran. It was possible that they were merely in the center of a storm that would only worsen.

"Should we continue, then?" Ryand'r asked. "What if it gets worse?"

Koriand'r looked up, locking eyes with her brother. The fierce determination in her expression made him feel small again.

"Then we brave the storm," she said. "I can carry Roy. I can't leave Jason behind just because of a little wind and snow."

Ryand'r watched in awe as an aurora of violet, blue, and green bloomed around his sister. Then, she crumpled next to the Earth-man.

Fear spiked through Ryand'r; he was alone. Now what was he supposed to do?

He looked down at the unconscious forms of his sister and her friend.

 _This is a test_ , he realized.

"I'll carry them both if I have to!" he shouted into the wind. "These people saved my life! All they want to do is find their friend! He's suffered… unspeakable things. They want to make sure he's okay. And I do too."

Around him, the wind stilled. Though he couldn't see it himself, Ryand'r imagined he was glowing like the others.

" _Be still, little one,"_ a soft voice said. " _You seem worthy enough for now. You'll see Jason Todd soon, though you may not like what you find. Are you prepared for that?"_

Ryand'r nodded, though he wasn't sure at who or what.

 _"Then rest now."_

At the words, he felt himself grow heavy and dropped to the snow, consciousness fading away to white noise.

* * *

"Mother," the Essence insisted, "these outsiders are going to ruin _everything_. We cannot allow them to continue."

Ducra shook her head. "Fair's fair. Their intentions are pure."

Panic that the Essence didn't even know she could feel flooded her. "Their 'intentions' could ruin everything! We have a plan. A _single_ plan. If it fails, we are lost!"

"Have a little faith in the boy," was Ducra's final word on the matter. "Talia brought him to us for a reason."

* * *

When Kori came to, she knew the Sun had returned before she even opened her eyes; it was once again caressing her face. She smiled as she opened her eyes and saw the familiar courtyards and walls of the All-Caste - and Roy and Ryand'r on either side of her.

Roy had clearly awoken first, and he was running his fingers through her hair, looking calmer than he had in a long time. He stopped when she sat up, and greeted her with a gentle, "Hey," and a smile.

"Hey yourself," she replied, returning his smile.

Beside her, Ryand'r groaned softly, then sat up.

"Is this the place we were searching for?" he asked.

Kori nodded. "Welcome to the All-Caste, Ryand'r."

The Essence materialized in front of them. She looked, at best, disdainful.

"Be warned," she informed them, "that the Jason you expect to find will likely not be the Jason you actually find. And this venture of yours may be entirely fruitless."

Kori didn't miss Roy's fingers curling into a fist at his side.

"What did you do to him?" he spat.

The Essence looked down her nose at him. Something old and angry boiled in the voids that were her eyes.

"Anything that may have happened to Jason would be his own doing. He is an autonomous being, after all."

Kori huffed, getting to her feet. "Where is he?"

The Essence raised an eyebrow. "That is for you to find out for yourselves."

Then, the Essence disappeared in a black cloud.

"She…" Ryand'r mused, "doesn't seem the most supportive."

"Doesn't matter," Roy said, standing up and dusting himself off. "We don't need her help or approval. How big can this place be?"

The answer, as it turned out, was plenty. Much of the complex had been rebuilt since they had seen it last, and the buildings were far larger than they appeared to be. Many had labyrinthine architecture inside, most likely to make them harder to destroy a second time, that made navigation stressful and tedious.

But finding the way through the buildings was not impossible, and became even easier when the smell of food became apparent. After that, it became a simple matter of following the scent. Whether the source of the smell would be the end of the journey or not almost didn't matter – where there was food, there were people. Mortal people who had to eat and didn't speak in haughty riddles.

The hallway ended at a small kitchen where someone was leaning over a hearth, stirring a pot of something or other. They straightened and turned around almost as soon as the trio crossed the threshold into the kitchen, however.

"Oh, hi."

It was Jason, leaning on his crutches but otherwise looking unhurt.

Kori couldn't help herself, she flew across the room and threw her arms around him, nearly crushing him in the tightest hug she dared give. "Jason!"

But Jason pushed her away, his eyes wide with confusion and fear.

"Who?"

 **A/N:**

 **Updates may slow down again now that I'm back into the full swing of a semester, but this chapter, at least, is on time! I will also (hopefully) have some bonus content to share next weekend on the blog as a Valentine's Day gift (because I love you guys.)**

 **While not directly a sequel, the first part of this chapter tie back to the To Die Would Be An Awfully Big Adventure oneshot.**

 **-I imagine Death would smell like lilies, one of the most popular funeral flowers. They also smell pretty darn nice.  
-Roy and Dick really should talk to each other, but damn if they aren't stubborn assholes.  
-Instead of crashing at the Manor and getting into all the awkwardness that would come with that, Steph found our guys a safehouse to crash at. She's an ally.  
-Crutches suck. So does the feeling of realizing that a place you used to call home now feels foreign and vaguely hostile. *shrug emoji*  
-For the zero people wondering, the titles of the books in the three-in-one Eva Ibbotson collection are Which Witch?, The Secret of Platform 13, and Island of the Aunts (in that order.) I picked that book because it's the chunkiest book in my collection that I haven't already referenced, and chunky books make the most noticeable holes. See? It's a plot device, not just an attempt to reference my favorite childhood author!  
-"Just DROP and ROLL!" was advice on window jump-outing that my friend shouted at the screen several times while watching a movie called The Babysitter, so while I, personally, have never jumped out a window, I assume the advice is sound. If you decide to try it at home, I only ask that you don't hold me responsible for the results.  
-"I can't feel my fingers" was the only thing in Cry For Justice that was actually clever, so have a shoutout!  
-honestly, this chapter was one of the hardest parts of the original story to rewrite. Everything is so fucking contrived. After this arc is over, I'm gonna do a lot less of adapting from the comics and instead start writing more original stuff, so if there was a specific bit of RHatO/RHA you were hoping to see here, know that it probably won't happen because I don't need that kind of stress in my life.  
Welcome to the beginning of the end, dear readers! Two or three more chapters, and then this arc will be over and I'll be branching out a little before coming back to this to adapt RH/A. This means more Stephanie, more Authority, maybe even more Isabel and Simon. In general, exploring more of what a DC reboot could have been. Or I'll just get bogged down in homework and disappear until like, May. Who knows! I have a lot of papers and presentations this semester! But I love you all the same.  
"Doubt thou the Sun doth shine, doubt thou the stars are fire, doubt something else I think, but never doubt my love for you." - William Shakespeare or maybe Emilie Autumn.**


	10. Tales from the Archives

"Who are you?" Jason asked, eyes wide in confusion. "And who is Jason?"

Did they somehow have the wrong person, Roy wondered.

But it had to be him. The scarred face and crooked nose, the skunk stripe in his hair, those strange eyes… they were uniquely Jason.

"Jason's a buddy of ours," Roy explained, not a little sarcastically. "Looks exactly like you, should be hanging around here somewhere, maybe you've seen him?"

Jason's eyebrows remained scrunched.

"No?" he said. "It's just me, the Essence, and the Archivist. Maybe you have the wrong mountain."

Kori's mouth was hanging open in disbelief. "You are joking, right? This isn't funny!"

But Jason's face betrayed nothing. "Why would I be joking?"

"If you are not Jason Todd, then who are you?" Ryand'r asked.

"I'm…" Jason shrugged. "I'm nobody. I don't even have a name."

Roy was pissed enough for all of them. He turned around and walked out without a word. Kori was right behind him.

"Are we about to go harass a child?" she asked, most likely referring to the Archivist.

"Yup."

"Excellent. I can't imagine that Jason did this to himself, no matter what he went through. Running and hiding has never been like him."

* * *

"He did this himself," Siaru explained, far more patiently than he felt. "I'll even allow you to view my memories of the event, if that would help convince you."

"Yeah, that's a definite yes," the obnoxious human man snapped.

"Excuse me? We seem to have wildly differing interpretations of social protocol."

A small gun sprang out of the man's prosthetic arm, pointed directly at Siaru.

He rolled his eyes and crossed his arms.

"By all means," he said, "murder me. I assure you, it will be entirely counterproductive. I won't help you as a ghost, either."

The alien woman pushed the man's arm away.

"Please," she beseeched him. "We understand the inconvenience, be we only want to help our friend. We're beginning to make ourselves sick with worry, causing us to act rashly. Please forgive us. Would you please help us understand what's going on?"

Silently, he regarded her just long enough to make it frustrating.

"Were you the only petitioner I had, I would gladly accept your kind words," he said. "However, I'm feeling incredibly insulted by your friend." He stared directly at the man, switching to addressing him directly: "Do you honestly think you deserve my knowledge?"

The woman leaned over and whispered, " _Do it for Jason_ ," in the man's ear. The man sighed. Heavily.

"Please accept my humblest apologies. I'm mad at the Universe, not you specifically, and acting like a dick. I will… make efforts to improve."

Siaru rolled his eyes again. "Good enough."

* * *

 _"I can't handle what's coming," Jason said, shaking his head. "Not like this. Usually, I can handle distractions, but now I'm too scattered. The intrusive thoughts are… too much."_

 _"Have you tried Adderall?" Siaru drawled._

 _Jason glared. "I'm serious! You have to take the memories. Anything connected to what happened to me. Please."_

 _Siaru sighed. "Very well. But the more I take, the harder they will be to recover."_

 _"I know. I understand the consequences, and I'm fully ready to deal with them."_

 _"Doubtful," Siaru scoffed under his breath._

* * *

Had Roy been Tamaranean, his hair and eyes would've been blazing at that point. Kori's certainly were.

"You!" she spluttered. "He… he asked you to remove the memories relating to what the Joker did to him! Not _every memory in his head!_ "

The child's face remained impassive. "And be glad that I didn't. Otherwise, he would be a quivering, infantile mess."

"You know what she means!" Roy interrupted on her behalf, slapping the desk in fun of Siaru. "He has no idea who he is!"

Siaru steepled his fingers and stared the pair down over them.

"Personal memories are interconnected," he explained. "Leave one, and it would be like knocking over a row of dominos. He would fill in the blanks far too easily, and taking the memories in the first place would be essentially useless."

"Then what was the point of taking our memories the first time we met?" Kori asked. "If they would just come back anyway?"

"True, they likely would have come back, but it takes time. Especially the small memories. Bigger memories are more eager to restore themselves. I don't expect you to understand."

"That's it," Roy huffed. "We're going to see your boss."

He turned and stormed out of the archival building. Kori turned to follow him, but Siaru pointedly cleared his throat behind her, so she stopped.

"And how is your own restoration project going?" he asked.

Kori frowned. She had the shape of it now, but details were still missing.

"Stolen memories always return. Repressed memories are up to you to return to yourself. Maybe you just fear what you'll find."

* * *

"So, do you really not have a name?" Ryand'r asked, regarding the Earth-man his sister and her friend seemed convinced was their Jason.

The Earth-man scratched his head, a frown twisting his face. A face which, Ryand'r observed, was even more interesting than most Earth-people's – especially his eyes. The spots of black in the center of white was normal, but the rings separating the black and white were fascinating. Mostly, they were brown. But green also radiated out from directly around the black, and each ring had a splotch of blue at its base. His eyes held galaxies.

"If I have a name, I don't remember it," he said.

Ryand'r tilted his head to one side and blinked slowly. "Then what do they call you?"

"'You,' 'him,' sometimes 'boy,' but I don't mind. I don't need a name."

Ryand'r felt his eyebrows shoot upward.

"Not to offend you," he said, "but that makes no sense."

"I have a simple life here!" the Earth-man explained. "I don't really need an identity."

He did not sound at all sure.

"Isn't it boring, not knowing things?"

The Earth-man's expression changed immediately.

"I am _so_ bored!" he declared. "I hate sitting still, and waiting, and all this… _busy work!_ " He gestured wildly with the large spoon he'd been stirring the pot with. "I wanna do things that require effort, for once! Please, even if I end up not being the guy your friends are looking for, let me come with you."

Ryand'r smiled. "I doubt that will be a problem."

* * *

"Mother!" the Essence complained. "Surely you cannot be serious? If the Twice-Born's friends take him, his memories will return in no time! They do _not_ seem like the type to not interfere. They will try to 'fix' him, and when they succeed, we are all doomed."

Ducra sighed with the endless patience of the dead. "Dear, whatever happens, Jason has to make his own choices. His friends can't force him to go with them, but we can't force him to stay. Whatever he chooses, we'll just have to make it work."

The Essence squeezed her eyes shut and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Remind me again why we could not just train Talia for this?"

"Talia is certainly experienced, but maybe too much so. She is set in her ways, sticking to the patterns she's traced through the centuries. Even taking her memories couldn't change that. Jason, on the other hand, is still so young. He's still deciding who he's going to be. He may be thick-skulled, but, to quote Miss Dickinson, he 'dwells in possibility.' He actually stands a chance."

"I am definitely going with them," he said. "I appreciate everything you've tried to do for me, but I've learned everything you'll let me learn from you, and I have to know more. Please don't be upset."

The Essence looked sad. Or frustrated. He couldn't quite tell.

"We are just trying to keep you safe," she said. "There are things out in the world best left unknown, and my personal belief is that you are unprepared to face them."

He felt his own frustration rising to the surface.

"You've never believed in me! The entire time I've been here, you've been watching me out of the corner of your eye! Is there something wrong with me? Please, tell me _something!_ "

The Essence sighed. "You have a soul that has known incredible sorrow. There is a great light within you, but the darkness that sorrow brings would extinguish it if given the chance. I am not at liberty to tell you what is coming, but I can say that you will need every bit of light you have if you want to survive it. You understood this, and chose to cut away the darkness."

"I don't think I would've chosen this if I had known it would leave me like this." He gestured to himself.

"Believe me or not, you did understand. You made the most difficult choice we could ask you to make, even knowing what it would do. Your heart is noble, and I can say that with confidence. But if you leave now, as you are, you are in grave danger. We cannot protect you beyond the mountain."

He squared his shoulders and looked directly into the voids of the Essence's eyes.

"If I am everything you say I am, then trust me. I can handle the world beyond the mountain. Tell me, the people who came after me, did I trust them?"

The Essence nodded slowly. "I believe so, but –"

"Then I trust them now. I'm going with them."

The Essence sighed, defeated. "You are still beyond stubborn. Mayhaps nothing I do will make a difference. Go. But know that you are always free to return."

* * *

"How ya doing, kid?" Roy shouted at Jason over the wind.

Jason was clinging, wide-eyed, to Ry's neck for dear life as the Tamaranean carried him through the air with the speed of a fighter jet.

"Don't like it," Jason replied as quickly as he could. He appeared to be focusing his efforts on not puking. Roy knew exactly how he felt.

"We are nearly there," Kori reassured him, inadvertently shouting directly into Roy's ear.

Kori's island actually came into view sooner than Roy thought it would. As soon as she set him down on the deck of the ship she'd turned into a home, he collapsed, chest heaving. Ryand'r touched down with Jason a second later, and it was at that point that Jason started throwing up as if his life depended on it.

"First time's always a killer, huh?" Roy couldn't help quipping once the retching died down, because technically, Roy supposed, it _was_ the first time Jason had flown, as far as Jason knew. The memory loss was giving everything a tint of _Twilight Zone_. Jason just groaned.

"I'll get you two some water," Kori said.

"Awesome." Roy waved weakly. "We'll stay here and try to return to solid form."

After "returning to solid form," everyone seemed to be in agreement that popcorn and a movie were the only matters in need of attending to.

"Why," Roy groaned, sinking onto the couch beside Jason and Ry, "did we not just do this in the first place?"

"Everyone kept needing to be saved," Kori replied playfully, curling up next to him and turning the TV on.

"I thought I was gonna quit doing that?"

Kori ruffled his hair. "You're too caring for that. You cannot help yourself."

Oof, right to the heart of matters.

"Just find a movie and stop reading my mind."

Kori giggled, but logged herself into Dick's Netflix account without making any more comments.

"Hey, what's that one?" Jason piped up as Kori scrolled through suggested titles. "Go back."

Kori scrolled backward as requested.

"Stop! That one. _Stardust_. It sounds… familiar, almost."

Roy and Kori exchanged a look. Was Jason remembering something?

"Do you want to watch it?" Kori asked.

Jason shrugged. "Sure, if you guys are okay with it."

Roy skimmed the description. "Hmm. Lighthearted, family friendly, sounds like just what we need right now."

"I'm fine with whatever!" Ry chimed in.

"Sounds unanimous to me!" Kori said, then hit play.

* * *

Ryand'r wanted to stay. He truly, deeply wanted to spend more time with the big sister he barely knew and her friends on the strange planet they called home. But the war for Vega's freedom would not end just because one of its warriors was homesick, and he had been away from the Omega Men too long already. So he thanked his sister for everything, told his new Earth friends how glad he was to have met them, and sent out a signal to the mothership that he was ready to return.

Within the hour, he was back with his crew. Kalista informed him of her happiness at his return, and it felt good to be back.

The only thing that would've felt better was staying on Earth.

* * *

After Ryand'r left, Kori's heart felt a little heavier. She longed for more time with the only family member she had left.

"You'll see him again before you know it," Roy told her, voice soft in order to not bother Jason, who had fallen asleep on the couch.

Kori sighed. "I wish you were right. But he's fighting a war. Wars are not won overnight."

Roy opened his mouth to say something else, but the lights went out, plunging the room into ink-black darkness.

"That would be the generator having a tantrum," she said. "It does that. Wait here."

"I can't exactly see to do anything else," Roy's voice said.

"Right…"

A small halo of Sun-fire flared up around Kori, not fully illuminating the room, but providing enough light for Roy to find the emergency flashlight on the wall.

"You are good?" Kori asked once he'd flicked it on and made sure it worked.

Roy nodded, flashing her a crooked half-smile. "We'll manage."

Kori returned the smile, then headed toward the electrical utility room. Her footsteps echoed loudly in the darkness. She always hated when the generator went out; the dark was eerie and made the whole place feel haunted. She could almost imagine the yawning mouths of empty doorways and dark halls were moaning, sorrowful with their lot in life…

She hurried on.

The generator room was no better than the hallway. Shapes seemed to move and flicker in the soft glow Kori cast, darting around in corners or crawling across the floor.

As Kori reached the generator itself, she noticed something very strange. The generator hadn't shut down on its own, it had been shut off. Deliberately. Kori switched it back on, and with a _hiss_ , something sprayed her in the face. Her skin and throat burned, and when the lights came back on, so did her eyes. She coughed, clutching her throat, and stumbled backward, directly into another person.

"Hiya," a woman's voice said. Then, a blade slashed across Kori's chest and the burning worsened.

Kori turned to face her attacker, and her vision started to blur. All she saw was green. She launched a starbolt at the green blur, but it danced out of the way, its laughing echoing her coughing.

"I'm not here for you, sweetie," the voice said. "So I don't have to kill you unless you force me to."

Kori tried to respond, but all that came from her mouth was more coughing. She fired another starbolt, and something stung her in return.

The voice was becoming distorted as it said, "This is getting pathetic."

The room was tilting and spinning. Kori wasn't quite sure when she hit the floor, but she knew it would be a while before she got back up.

* * *

Roy was starting to drift off when the lights came back on, startling him awake. He rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand, flicked the flashlight off, and got up to put it away.

After restoring the flashlight to its spot on the wall, he started cleaning up the popcorn, dumping the little bowls back into the big bowl and chasing down the stray kernels. He crouched down to get the ones that fell on the floor and groaned internally when he saw how much had been kicked under the couch.

Footsteps echoed as someone came back in the room.

"Kori," Roy announced, brushing himself off as he stood up, "we're gonna have to vacuum."

He looked up. The woman standing in the doorway, arms crossed, was definitely not Kori.

"Jade."

Jade Nguyen flashed him an emotionless smile as she informed him, "I'm not helping you vacuum."

The gun sprang from Roy's arm as he stumbled back in surprise. "What do you want, Jade?"

"Preferably, you dead and our daughter alive, but I'll settle for just the first part if I have to. Ooh, nice upgrade on the arm." She clicked her tongue as she walked into the room. "Chill, honey. I'm not here for you. I just want him. Or, more specifically, the League does."

She nodded toward Jason, who was starting to wake up.

"The League? Of _Assassins?_ " Roy thought he knew Jade better than that. "What are you doing with them?"

"None of your business. Now let me at Jason or get hurt."

"You. Can't. Have. Him," Roy growled.

Jade rolled her eyes. "Please. I'm not going to kill him. This is strictly a kidnapping unless it goes completely sideways. Don't do anything stupid."

Unfortunately for her, "stupid" was an important part of Roy's vocabulary.

"Jason," he said, making eye contact with the now fully-awake and scared shitless Jason on the couch, "run."

He fired a shot at Jade and she flipped out of the way, Jason dove to the floor, and the chaos ensued.

As Jason scrambled for the door, awkwardly adjusting his crutches as he moved, Jade grabbed a throwing knife from her belt. Roy launched himself over the couch, knocking her out of the way. He grabbed Jade's wrist, trying to wrestle the knife away.

"Let _go_ of me, Harper!" she grunted as she punched him with her free hand.

Roy allowed the punch to knock him to the floor and grabbed Jade's ankle, tripping her as she ran for the door. She remained on her hands and knees for a second, then turned to look at him with murder in her eyes.

"Okay," she said. "You wanna do this? Then we'll do this."

They both got to their feet, eyes locked. Then, Jade lunged, catching Roy by the throat and slamming him into a wall. He grunted as all the air left his lungs.

"I _hate_ you," she spat, squeezing his airway shut. Roy struggled to pry her hand loose, but she was determined. "We had a _chance_ to get our daughter back. And you threw it away because you want everyone to be just as miserable as you are! I will _never_ forgive you for that."

Roy tried to form a response, but all his words were being choked away. Jade held up her free hand.

"What do you think you deserve?" she asked, flexing her fingers. "Because I'm thinking slow and painful."

She held up her middle finger, then carved a shallow slice down his cheek with her nail. Only then did she let go of his throat.

Roy gasped for air, throat – and cheek – burning.

"We could've been so good together, Roy! But you are _such_ a dick." Her voice cracked with emotion.

She grabbed his face and kissed him. Despite himself, Roy leaned into the kiss, caressing Jade's jawline with both hands.

The tingling he felt in his lips confirmed his suspicion that she had some kind of paralyzing agent in her lipstick. He was used to this. He could try to fight it, keep going after her, trying to stop her with everything he had left. Instead, he sank to the floor, giving in to the numbness spreading through his limbs.

"Goodbye, Roy."

* * *

He burst through the door into the light, panting slightly from the effort of running with crutches. Hearing footsteps behind him, he picked up his desperate pace across the deck, until he reached the edge.

 _What now?_ he wondered as he stared down into the waves lapping at the hull of the ship. Could he jump? Or would that mean certain death?

"Don't do anything stupid," a woman's voice drawled behind him.

He turned, trembling, to face her. The woman wore a green headband that kept her long, black curls out of her face. Her tunic, leggings, and boots were all green, as were her long, sharp fingernails. The wicked blades that hung from her belt were a well-polished silver. She was like an emerald nightmare.

"What do you want from me?" he asked, doing his best to keep the trembling out of his voice.

"War is coming," she said. "And you owe the League of Assassins quite the debt, as I understand it."

"Assassins?" White spots danced in front of his eyes. "What kind of person _am_ I?"

"Doesn't matter. Now, we can do this the easy way…" She unsheathed one of her blades. "Or the hard way."

He didn't see many options.

Still, he felt the need to ask, "What did you do to the others?"

She smirked. "I knocked the princess out. Roy is dying."

Deep inside, he felt something twist. He didn't remember anything about them, but he hated to just leave them to die. Surely they didn't deserve that?

The assassin seemed to gauge his apprehension, and scoffed, "Don't look at me like that. I'm almost one hundred percent sure they'll both be fine. They're annoying like that."

Jason nodded at the reassuring(?) words. He had found a note in his book, written in his own handwriting, that simply read _"Go with her."_ At first, he thought it was about Koriand'r. Now, he wondered if it was actually about the assassin in green, a hint of a warning about claiming responsibility for the past he had chosen to forget.

"Okay. I'll come with you."

* * *

"Roy? Oh God, Roy what happened? Are you okay? Can you hear me? Roy?"

"Please tell me you packed your antidote kit."

"Yes I packed the – Oh, I should probably be using it, then."

"That would be my suggestion."

Roy moaned in pain as feeling slowly returned to his body, burning like when your leg falls asleep and the feeling just starts returning to it.

"It's okay. You're gonna be okay, just hang in there."

"Don't. Want. To," Roy ground out. The antidote was almost as bad as the poison had been.

"Yes you do."

"Try opening your eyes."

Roy forced an eye open, followed by the other eye. Oliver Queen was leaning over him, watching him intently.

"You had us really worried, kid. Knew you could make it."

Roy nodded, trying to blink away the tears in his eyes that were forming from some combination of pain and relief.

Dinah Lance was sitting on his other side, holding his hand with both of hers.

"We are about to have a very long talk."

* * *

Kori pushed herself to her feet, angrily inhaling as deeply as she could. The green blur had made her look like a _fool_ , and if she were still hanging around, Kori would make her pay.

Still catching her breath, Kori shuffled into the corridor, her blazing hair lighting the way back to her boys. She blazed even brighter when she saw someone dressed in green kneeling over Roy.

But he must have sensed she was there, because he looked at her right before she could blast the green person and shook his head.

"Kori!" he exclaimed, a smile brightening his face. "It's okay! Cheshire's gone."

The green-clad person turned, surprised, to look at her. Green Arrow! Oliver Queen! And, on Roy's other side, Dinah Lance! Kori exhaled all her anger, letting cool relief take its place.

"I think I'm good to sit up without throwing up," Roy informed his parents. Gently, they helped him sit vertically with his back against the wall.

"How did you find us?" Kori asked.

Oliver waved his hand. "Mia did some kind of computer voodoo you'd have to ask her about. Thank God she got it right."

Kori noticed the empty space in the room for the first time.

"Where is Jason?" she asked.

Roy turned white, while Dinah and Oliver shared looks of confusion.

"She took him," Roy muttered, trying to get to his feet. "Jade took him. Shit. _Shit_."

"Roy, sit down," Dinah cautioned, grabbing his shoulder.

"No, we gotta find him. We… he… I feel very lightheaded, but the point stands!"

He slid back to the floor and groaned, burying his face in his hands.

" _I_ will find him," Kori decided. "You are going to stay here and take care of yourself."

She couldn't be sure, but it looked as though Roy was pouting.

"I think that's the smart thing to do," Dinah agreed.

"I don't wanna do the smart thing!"

"You sound like Ollie."

"Hey now!"

"Sorry honey, but nobody – including yourself – can deny that you can complain."

"Excuse me!" Kori interjected. "Do you know where they went?"

Roy nodded. "Jade's working with the League of Assassins. She's taking Jason to them."

"Then that's where I'll look."

Dinah held up a hand. "Whoa. Excuse me. That is the worst idea. You are not taking on the League of Assassins by yourself. You need a plan."

Kori tossed her hair in the most regal manner she could come up with. "I do not plan. I do."

She turned and strode from the room, feeling ready for anything and afraid of nothing.

* * *

Roy pulled his knees into his chest, feeling like he was fourteen years old again, getting dragged into the headmaster's office for the first time after punching a bully.

"I don't want to talk," he said. "I want to find Jason before he ends up dead."

Ollie not-so-subtly exchanged a look with Dinah.

"Jason _Todd?_ " he asked.

"Priorities, Ollie," Dinah replied.

She pulled Roy into a hug he couldn't resist returning. "We've been so worried about you. We thought we lost you so many times."

The guilt he felt was horrendous. Now that he was thinking clearly, he remembered the things he had said to Dinah and Ollie. And to Mia. And to all his friends; especially to Donna.

 _Donna… She'll never forgive me. And I don't deserve her forgiveness anyway._

"You did, a few times," he said. "But I'm here now."

"That's good," Ollie replied with a smile. "I miss my partner."

The hug they shared was a little awkward, but much-needed.

"Now for the not so sappy part."

 _Of course. Here comes yelling._

"You need to come home."

Roy shook his head. "I can't do that. Not now."

"Roy," Dinah said, a warning in her voice, "we found you half-dead on the floor of a beached naval cruiser in the middle of the Caribbean. You need help."

His panic levels rose to red-alert status as memories of forced hospitalization surfaced; abandonment, confusion, chaos, and despair chasing each other around inside him, repressing every other emotion.

He shook his head harder. "I _know_ I'm broken. But I have to fix myself. Everyone else puts the pieces back together wrong. I'm working on it, I swear. I'm getting better. But if you stick me in a hospital, I won't. That's not what I need right now."

Dinah and Ollie both seemed surprised by this.

"Roy…" Ollie began.

"… we _never_ thought of you as broken," Dinah finished.

"And we won't take any measures without your consent. We just want you to come home."

"Let us help you find Jason. Five heads are better than one, and with Connor and Mia on board, we can resolve this in no time."

"C'mon, pal. For old time's sake?"

Roy weighed his options. If he stayed put, he'd be working solo with no way of contacting Kori and no way off the island, plus the fact that Ollie and Dinah would never be satisfied. If he left, he ran the (however unlikely) risk of getting double-crossed, but if Ollie and Dinah were telling the truth, then he would be back with his family, working with them to find Jason.

"Okay," he agreed. "Let's go home."

* * *

Kori came to the realization that it probably _was_ a bad idea to take on the League herself pretty quickly. Instead, she had a different idea.

She only had to adjust her course slightly to get to Tibet. The mountain was snowy, but the Sun was shining this time. The mountain was waiting for her.

"Do you know why I am here?" she declared as her feet touched the ground of the All-Caste.

In a plume of smoke, the Essence appeared. "Yes."

"I know you don't want to hear what I have to say, but you need to. Jason was taken by an assassin working with the League of Assassins. His life, and whatever plan you have, is in danger. You _need_ to restore his memories, no matter the cost."

For once, the Essence sounded sympathetic, instead of condescending, as she spoke.

"Princess," she said, "Jason is where he needs to be. Twice-Born by way of the Lazarus Pit, he has been imbued with a particular set of abilities which make him one of the few mortals capable of diffusing the coming conflict. But he can only do that if faced with the conflict. Surely you understand that?"

Something about the immortal being's entire manner was pissing Kori off.

"I understand," she said. "But I do _not_ understand how you expect this plan you have to work? He remembers _nothing_. He will almost certainly die!"

"Jason fully understood the possibility of his death when he undertook this mission. As a warrior, I am sure you are familiar with the concept of making the ultimate sacrifice for the greater good?"

"Do _not_ patronize me," Kori growled. "I _fully_ understand the concept of sacrifice. And if Jason's memories of consenting to a mission that could mean his death are gone, then so is his consent. He no longer understands what's happening! _He_ is not choosing a mission, knowing he could die. _You_ are sending him to certain death."

The Essence's face blanched as white as her hair and robes.

"Mayhaps," she said, "it would be best to have this conversation with mother and Oskar."

* * *

Home. Home had never been a place – Roy moved around too much for that, and Ollie's place had a tendency to get blown up – but with the right people, anywhere could be home.

Roy paced the kitchen, drumming his fingers against his legs. Connor was at the stove, working on a dal tadka recipe. Ollie and Mia were finishing a quick patrol, and Dinah was dropping Sin off with Scott and Barda. Everyone insisted they would help Roy after they finished what they needed to get done, but it felt like it was taking forever.

"Dude," Connor said, very kindly, "you look like hell."

"I've been spending a lot of time there," Roy replied.

Connor snorted. "Go get some rest. The world will still need saving half an hour from now."

"I'm not tired!" Technically, he was exhausted. Poison, jet lag, and anxiety were a horrible combination.

"Yes you are."

"Yeah, I am."

"I won't let the world end without you."

"You're a good man."

Roy shuffled off to the other end of the house and collapsed on the living room couch. It felt as though he had barely fallen asleep before someone was shaking his shoulder.

"Roy," a voice said. "Roy, wake up."

Roy opened his eyes, and for a second thought it was Connor standing over him. But wasn't Connor's skin darker?

Roy blinked. Connor also didn't have green eyes.

"Joey?"

"There's no time to explain," Joey replied. "You're not safe here. They're coming for you, you need to run."

"Who? Joey, I don't –" he rubbed his eyes. When he looked again, Joey was gone.

"Joey?"

Roy stood up, fighting back a yawn. He looked around the room. It was starting to get shadowy with the afternoon light coming through the windows. But there was no doubt that he was alone in the room.

He went to the door, but the moment he touched the handle it flew open, almost hitting him in the face.

"There you are!" a man said, his mouth curling into a smile that didn't reach his eyes. Roy took a step back, but the man stepped toward him.

He smelled like tobacco and looked like he smoked a lot of it, with graying hair and thin features that made him look older than he probably actually was. Nothing about him seemed exceptional, but he radiated an energy of hopelessness.

A woman stepped out from behind him. She seemed less snakey than the man, but she had a real Evil Art Teacher vibe about her.

"I told you the other one wasn't who we were looking for," she said, giving the man a sideways look.

The man cracked his knuckles. "I _know_ , Three. I could tell from the way he practically radiated light."

Connor. They had to be talking about Connor.

"What did you do to him?" Roy snarled, fists clenching.

The man and woman exchanged a glance, then turned their stares at him.

"He's asleep," the woman replied, smiling sweetly – though it was more of a fake, Splenda sweetness.

"We even turned the stove off," the man added. "So don't worry."

Roy punched him, not caring that it felt like punching a wall. The man grabbed Roy's arm and effortlessly flipped him off his feet. Roy's back hit the floor hard, knocking all the air out of his lungs.

As stars danced in front of Roy's eyes, the man grabbed his arm again and the woman grabbed the other, pulling him to his knees. Roy struggled, but their grip was like iron.

A third uninvited person strolled into the room then. Roy's eyes traveled from polished shoes to a perfectly tailored suit to another face with an icy fake smile plastered on. He struggled harder, but the results were the same.

"Let him go," the newcomer ordered casually, inspecting his nails instead of looking at the people he was talking to. "Even if he could hurt us, he won't want to when he realizes we are the only ones who can actually help him."

The first man and woman relinquished their holds on Roy's arms.

"That's better," the second man said. "We're civilized people. We could try and act like it."

"Civilized people don't break into people's houses and make thinly veiled threats," Roy countered. "So I'd say you're doing a shitty job of 'acting like it.'"

The man laughed. "You have a lot still to learn about the world. But you have time for that. I should introduce myself. You may call me Five. I am about one thousand years old, and not quite what you would consider human. You've met Three and Six."

He offered his hand, but Roy ignored it and got to his feet on his own.

"Just tell me what you want."

Five still had that used-car-salesman smile on his face. "Very well. We both have business with the League of Assassins, as I understand it. My siblings and I, for example, need access to a Lazarus Pit, but the League doesn't like to share. They have wards in place to keep my kind out. Luckily for us, your human blood allows you to walk right past the wards, and once inside, you can dismantle them for us. The reason I'm confident you will help us is that the League has taken your friend. Get us into the compound, and the two of you walk free."

"Three," Roy corrected.

Five's eyebrows knit together. "Hmm?"

"My other friend went after him. There would be three of us."

The smile returned, full-force, to Five's face. "Of course! Help us, and the three of you walk free. We will gladly provide everything you need. What do you say?"

He held out his hand, ready to close the deal. Roy stared into his eyes. They flashed gold for a split second, and they were consistently hungry, but there was no sign he was lying.

Roy weighed his options. If he said no, there was a distinct possibility he'd get murdered. Or, even if they left him alive, he'd have to wait for his family to get home, come up with a plan that would probably have chances of total success somewhere within a single-digit percentage, and then have to deal with people having the audacity to care about him when it was all over. The whole thing was a lot to deal with.

Roy sighed as he shook Five's hand. "I'm in."

 **A/N:**

 **Hi guys! *waves* I've missed you! I've been backreading through the original comics and... I really hope my adaptation is more coherent than the source material. That's all I'm going to say for now.  
-fun fact from the History department: a good number of Archivists are Like That in real life. not being a grad student, I haven't had a reason to visit any actual archives, but from the stories I've heard from people who have, I've gathered that: A) archivists are often pricks, and B) you should never spend a significant amount of time in the archives if you haven't brought your own toilet paper, because you will regret it.  
-This will not be the last time I reference Stardust, because it's a damn good movie.  
-I'm sad to say goodbye to Ryand'r, too. Maybe he'll return someday!  
-Jade Nguyen wears pants that actually cover her ass because I said so.  
-"I do not plan. I do." -me, on my way to find Thai food in a city I'm not very familiar with and have only a vague sense of the direction of.  
-Oskar is the ghost of that German guy from a billion chapters away. I don't want to admit where I pulled the name from.  
I say this every other chapter, but this is officially the longest chapter I've ever written. 19 pages! I'll try to make the next one shorter as a breather before the finale. Love yoooouuuu!**


	11. Numbers Game

**A/N: This shouldn't have taken this long, but, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart, trying to make Lobdell and Tynion's writing make sense has aged me and I'm about to stop doing it altogether. I fully expect to find gray eyebrow hairs any day now. Your patience has been appreciated.**

Once, every thousand years – give or take – a sort of Convergence wracked the Multiverse. Any Universe not strong enough to resist the pull of all the others was annihilated, melded in with the Universes closest to them.

The "veils" between the Dimensions of each Universe thinned, allowing for supernatural exchanges of power beyond human comprehension. It was one such exchange that had fascinated Them.

They had known the Pit had a power bubbling up from another Dimension. They did not know what it was. But They knew it would elevate Them beyond what They were, and that was all They cared to know.

Seven were sent forth. These Seven were not special, until They became so. The Pit burned away What They Were, leaving What They Became for humanity to contend with. The Pit had no remorse for what she had created, only indifference. She owed humanity nothing.

The Seven took no name – names have power. They wanted no chance of losing Their power. But it was a power that humans were never meant to have. For as long as They would live, Their undeserved power would continue to burn within Them, causing Them to turn on their fellow humans, replacing what They burned away with what They cannibalized. Eventually, They were driven from society, forced to hide, to become naught but myths whispered about around the fire in the dark, striking only from the shadows.

The First went mad from the infinity of possibilities he could see. Every consequence of every choice that could be made by every human was made known to him. He could not bear it.

The Second reveled in death. He relished inflicting it, watching it, studying it, all without remorse. Never any remorse.

The Third fed herself on the dreams of others. She became addicted to their every fantasy, making her home in the castles they built in the air, then twisting them to suit her needs.

The Fourth found her respite in the heat of battle, only contented when she chased disaster. But when the child, who had grown inside of her since before the time she entered the Pit, was at last born, she found that destruction no longer satisfied her. She awoke to the emptiness that had so long been her world, and she left the others. She took a name, made a home for herself, and began a journey counter to the one she first took up, separate from her brothers and sisters.

The Fifth had the grandest ambitions of them all. His desires fed, and were fed by, the desires of humans. For as long as humanity practiced self-interest, he would never go hungry.

The Sixth, conversely, was only satisfied when humanity despaired. Whenever a human lost hope, he flourished.

The Seventh simply never wanted to be bored.

* * *

"I don't understand what you want from me," he said, searching the faces of the gathered assassins. The rubber grips of his crutches were slick beneath his sweaty palms, a dull ache radiated from his ankle, and he felt like he might be sick.

"You owe the League your service," one of them replied. She was a regal woman with smooth, amber skin, long, brown waves of hair with a shock of white framing her face, and brown-and-green eyes similar to his own. She wore a silky, white shirt tucked into royal purple pants, which, in turn, were tucked into spotless leather boots. There was something beautiful-yet-terrifying about her, like a jaguar. "The greatest threat to our existence is looming. It's time to repay your debt."

That was the whole thing, though.

"What debt?" he asked. "I don't understand what I owe you."

"Your life," she said. "I resurrected you when you were all but dead. Or did you forget that?"

"I did, in fact, forget that. I have no memories from before yesterday."

"What the fuck."

* * *

"Jason has a good heart," Ducra explained, "but he is an outright ass as a person."

"Yes, I am well aware of that," Kori said. "I still don't see how that justifies taking his memories."

The ghost, whose name was apparently Oskar, looked at her absently. "By my calculations, the next Convergence will occur within the next two days and turn any active Lazarus pits into… not exactly portals between dimensions, but close enough." He turned to Ducra. "What is the word I am looking for?"

"Nevermind, dear, the concept is there. We believe it would be foolish not to believe Ra's al Ghul will attempt to seize the power of the rift for himself. Oskar believes al Ghul and my siblings can destroy one another, but we needed a contingency plan for the likely event that that will not fully work."

"I hate to interrupt," Kori interrupted, "but we don't have time for this much exposition!"

Ducra cocked an eyebrow. "Calm your britches, hot-pants, I was just getting there. Only a pure soul can reject the power from the rift. Since my siblings knew that, they tried to destroy us. Now, Jason is the closest to a pure soul we have. At his core, he _is_ good. But the world has added a few layers that are less than desirable."

"Like the cheese which has started to grow mold on it," Oskar added, probably with the intent of being helpful.

"All we did was strip the corruption away for a while," Ducra continued. "Long enough to save the world."

"Oh," Kori replied, fists clenching as she imagined all the ways that might go wrong. "Is that all?"

* * *

"You'll need something to wear," Three said. "Since humans are so vulnerable to being stabbed or shot."

"Thanks for reminding me," Roy replied, matching her curt tone. "What would you recommend? Pulling something out of thin air?"

She glared at him, then closed her eyes and pressed her fingers to her temples. Fabric began weaving together out of thin air, then finally stopped and dropped to the floor.

"Get changed. And watch yourself. That made me hungry."

She turned on her heel and walked away.

Cautiously, as though it might bite him, Roy bent to pick up the fabric. It was a stiff, black jumpsuit that would cover him from the neck down and make him look like a mechanic in a cheap sci-fi movie.

Unfortunately, it fit perfectly.

* * *

"Let's see how much you _do_ remember," the assassin lady said. She tossed him a sword, which he failed to catch entirely. He dropped his left crutch, bent to pick the sword up, and stood back up with a different sword pressed against his throat.

"Pathetic," she said. "I trained you better than this. You _will_ remember how to fight, or you will die."

Something in her voice suggested she was being polite.

He tightened his grip on the sword and nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

She lowered her blade and took a few steps backward, then dropped into a fighting stance. He did his best to match the stance while still keeping the weight off his bad ankle.

"Begin."

They stared at each other for a brief moment that hung between them like an eternity. Then, the woman lunged toward him. In his attempt to block, he lost his balance and tumbled to the floor.

 _"Five!"_ a voice instructed from his memory. Instinctively, he brought his blade up in time to parry a downward thrust of the woman's blade.

He rolled to the side to avoid another downward thrust and pulled himself to his feet despite the screaming protest of his ankle.

As the woman's blade slashed toward him from his right, the memory instructed, " _Three!"_ and he managed to counter this attack as well.

He continued this way, blocking strikes at the last second when his memories reminded him " _Three!"_ _"Four!"_ or _"Five!"_ depending on which way the attack came from.

Finally, once he was sweating and breathing heavily, muscles and ankle crying for mercy, the woman dropped her sword.

"That was pathetic," she said.

"But…" he spluttered, "I blocked every move you made at me!"

"Barely. I held back, but even then, you only blocked! No attacking whatsoever. That is _not_ good enough. Now I don't know _what_ to do with you. You'll never survive a real fight."

That sounded ominous.

Luckily, a male assassin rushed into the room at that moment.

"Mistress!" he hailed the woman. "They're here, just as we feared."

She looked at the interrupting assassin for a moment with a cool, unconcerned look, then turned back.

"I suppose it's too late to worry about you. But know that if you fail in your duties, there are things worse than dying."

* * *

Kori excused herself from the Archives.

"I'm sure this won't excite you," she said, "but, knowing what I know, I can't sit idly by while the world does or does not end. Whatever happens, I need to be there."

The Essence materialized behind her and put a hand on her shoulder. "We can't let you do that. It's too risky."

Kori didn't turn around. "And how do you intend to stop me?"

The Essence's grip tightened. Smoke began swirling up from the stone steps, inky and thick, climbing Kori's legs, cold as dry ice.

Kori broke from the Essence's grip and ran for the exit. The Archives were nearly pitch-black with the smoke by the time Kori stumbled through the door and into the courtyard, legs giving way beneath her and sending her sprawling across the flagstones.

The Essence emerged from the blackness, white hair gleaming against the dark like the Moon. Clouds rolled in, casting the mountainside into a darkness as full as night.

"How will I stop you, little star?" she asked, head tilting to the side, billows of smoke flanking her like panthers at her side as she advanced. "I'll freeze your very heart."

Light and heat began to flow through Kori's veins, gathering in her clenched fists as she tilted her own head to the opposite side.

"Freeze my heart?" she asked. "Not if I burn yours first."

Then she uncurled her fists, pointing at whatever was within view. Trees, grass, wildflowers, and the buildings themselves were caught in the blast, flames engulfing whatever they didn't immediately reduce to ash. Void-eyes wide, the Essence screamed, a wordless cry that said everything. She dispersed in every direction, trying to contain the damage as quickly as possible.

Kori picked herself up, dusted herself off, and rocketed into the air without another interruption.

* * *

Esoterica had never been his strong suit, but Roy did his best to make a note of the way the symbols on the paper he'd been given were formed. Then, he sliced into the tip of his pointer finger with his pocketknife. It stung, but he ignored the feeling as he traced the symbols onto the stone, covering a different set that had been drawn previously – the seals. When he was finished replacing them, there would be nothing keeping Five, Three, and Six out.

Or, as it turned out, Five, Three, Six, and two others. Two more men with hungry eyes and pale faces, who would probably love to eat him.

Roy stuck his finger in his mouth to suck any arcane wall dirt out of the cut.

"I don't like the look of him," the first of the men Roy hadn't met said. He had the kind of face a person would forget as soon as they weren't looking at him anymore. He was like a corpse lying in the casket at the funeral of a stranger.

Five just smiled and shook his head. "You say that about everyone, One. This nice boy just helped us guarantee another thousand years on this earth. That was _very_ kind of him."

One's dull eyes flashed. "Everyone leaves, or lies, or dies one day. It is inevitable. And he," One pointed a long, pale finger at Roy, "lies."

"Of course he won't!" Five argued. "He knows this is the only way to save his friends. Isn't that right?"

"Yes," Roy said through clenched teeth.

Five slapped him on the back. "See! No worries, One."

The one who still hadn't been named also hadn't blinked the entire time.

"Worries about strangers are the difference between life and death," he said.

* * *

Movement around a corner caught his eye; he could almost swear he'd seen a little girl's face.

"Are there children here?" he asked, dreading the answer, yet already knowing it.

"Of course," the woman replied. "The best assassins are the ones who start the youngest. If you had trained properly before the age of seventeen, maybe you wouldn't be so useless now." She thought for a moment, regarding the way he wobbled on his crutches. "Or before now."

"That felt unnecessary."

She shrugged. "Channel your resentment into something useful."

Then, she charged up the stairs toward the unknown.

* * *

Kori dove toward the unknown below her, and landed in the midst of a firefight, immediately ducking as a woman with stars glowing from her eyes tossed an assassin across the room. The scene around her was chaos. A man with gray eyes was bringing assassins to their knees simply by touching them, it seemed, and then snapping their necks with ease. A man with golden eyes seemed to have assassins fighting each other for the chance to fight him. A corpselike man with clouded eyes grabbed someone's arm, and within seconds, they aged until they withered into dust. A fourth man with nothing seemingly odd about him simply stood still and let assassin blades sink into him – then the wounds inflicted on him appeared instead to rip through the assassin that dealt them. And on the periphery of the battle was Roy, doing his best.

Kori burned her way to him with her starbolts. When his eyes met hers, he smiled with relief.

"I thought I might find you here," the expression said.

"What took you so long?" his voice said.

"The Essence and I had a disagreement," she explained, blasting assassins away with careless ease. She noticed the coveralls he was wearing – an outfit she was sure she'd never seen him in before. "Interesting outfit."

He blinked a few times before realizing what she was talking about. "Oh, right. That reminds me." He reached into a pocket on his hip and pulled out a fist-sized bronze sphere, then handed it to her. "Twist the hemispheres in opposite directions, then toss this at the Weird Eyes Gang over there." He pulled a second one out for himself. "If these work right, we might be able to stop them."

"How?"

Roy nervously ran his fingers through his hair. "When we were 'touring' the All-Caste, I noticed all the weapons were made of bronze. I think, if we're lucky, bronze can take these guys down. So I basically made bronze-dust smokebombs. Maybe don't inhale the dust. If I'm right, it's deadly to them and inconvenient to everyone else."

Kori smiled. "I appreciate your need to strategize in every situation."

"And I appreciate how good you are at smashing things."

"I'll cover you."

With the hand that wasn't holding the bronze smokebomb, Kori fired starbolts to deflect anyone or anything that came too close as she flew and Roy ran across the room. When they were close enough, they both unleashed their smokebombs, which went off perfectly. The corpselike man noticed first, and shot a wild look at the golden-eyed man.

"I warned you!" he shouted, then began to cough as the bronze dust flew into his sinuses. He clutched his throat like he was choking, horrifying gray blood began to drip from his nose and mouth, and his eyes reverted to looking like human eyes. The woman, the gray-eyed man, and the unremarkable one all seemed to be experiencing the same effects. And watching it all in horror, just outside the range of the dust clouds, was the golden-eyed man.

* * *

Rage. Horror. Resignation. Five felt all these things in the space of a single breath as his brothers and remaining sister fell, lifeless to the floor. And Roy Harper was looking on in defiance. Six had been right about him. But Six was dead now. His powers, however, and those of the others, were extant. And now they all belonged to Five.

"Enough," he said, calmly, but in a voice that filled the room. "We're all friends, aren't we?"

There was a general murmur of assent, and the assassins lowered their weapons. Some resisted more than others, but they all gave in eventually. Including Roy Harper and his fiery alien friend.

Five strode across the few paces separating him and Roy Harper. The hapless mortal trembled as he fought against Five's thrall, but only his face actually defied Five.

"Technically," Five said, his trademark grin spreading across his face, "you did everything that was asked of you. So I would be remiss if I didn't hold up my end of our bargain. You and two friends are free to go. Until the Convergence, when I take the powers I once shared with my siblings for myself, and hunt you down like the little rat you are." He clapped his hands once. "So, who lives?"

"She does," Roy Harper replied, pointing at the alien next to him. Then he looked around, apparently having lost track of the friend he had tried so hard to save. Then, he saw Jason Todd, standing next to the Demon's daughter, and pointed at him. "And he does. And she does," he added, pointing to an assassin woman dressed in a poisonous green that was quite distinct from what the rest of the League was wearing.

Five shook his head, unable to help chuckling at the infirmity of human nature. "I believe you forgot our agreement already. You and _two_ of your mortal friends are free to go. Everyone else is mine."

"Yeah," Roy Harper said, a strange look in his eye, "that's what we agreed to, immunity for myself and two of my friends. But I'm trading mine. Kori, Jason, and Jade go free. I'm yours. No running, no deception. I won't fight back."

Not bad for a mortal.

Five couldn't contain his laughter any longer. He clapped Roy Harper on the shoulder. "You are quite the little mastermind, aren't you? I would've loved to offer you the chance to join the family. We'll do it your way."

He waved a hand and transported Roy Harper's three friends outside the walls of the Demon's stronghold.

"There, all settled. I think I'll eat your brain. It would be a shame to lose it, though absorbing it won't be nearly as good as having the whole thing around. Any final words? Maybe a final piece of wisdom to impart?"

Roy Harper's face was like a mask of defiance, but Five could see the fear underneath.

"I'm not sorry," the mortal said. Then, he began to kneel.

Five held up a hand. "That's not necessary. I respect you despite your poor choices. You deserve to die on your feet."

Then, he plunged a hand into the mortal's spine.

Roy Harper's screams were beautiful.

* * *

"That _bastard!_ "

Standing suddenly _outside_ the League stronghold, with two idiots she'd already had the customary action movie battle with, Jade was _pissed._

"What was he _thinking?"_

She wasn't shouting at anyone in particular, but Starfire felt the need to answer the rhetorical question anyway.

"That he was saving you from being the mind-controlled slave of an immortal psychopath?" she answered.

Jade ignored her.

"I'm going to kill him. He thinks he can betray me at every turn, then turn around and 'save my life?' _Fuck_ that. He has no idea what I'm going through."

She was conveniently ignoring the fact that he knew exactly what she was going through, just processing it in a different way, for the time being. Or possibly forever. She wasn't big on forgiveness.

She adjusted the magic teleportation bracelet thing the League had given her.

"What are you doing?" Jason asked.

She pointed at the bracelet. "Using one of my League perks to get back in there; it lets me disappear just like the Cheshire Cat. _Don't_ follow me."

As she popped out of existence, she felt a hand grab the back of her tunic.

As she popped back into existence, she spun around, ignoring the screams of pain coming from Roy's direction in order to confront the more immediate problem.

"I told you not to follow me!" she hissed.

"Obviously, I didn't listen," Starfire replied, barely looking as she threw a fireball in the direction of the aforementioned Immortal Psychopath. Jason stood beside her, looking like a typical deer after being caught in the headlights of a car.

Jade rolled her eyes. There was an angry scream from Immortal Psychopath, and a heavy thump that was probably Roy hitting the ground.

"Fuck you!"

Starfire huffed. "Arguing isn't going to accomplish anything!"

"Then stop… starting it!"

A wet sort of _squish_ sound Jade couldn't immediately identify prevented her from having to defend her point that Starfire had technically started it by following her after she'd said not to. She turned around. A blade, slick with gray blood, was poking out of Immortal Psychopath's chest. As quickly as it had appeared, it was drawn back out. Immortal Psychopath swayed, then fell. Talia al Ghul stood behind him, her face hard as marble, tightly clutching the bloody sword.

* * *

Roy came to in chains. Through the rusted bars of the tiny cell Roy found himself in, a League assassin was regarding him with a sour expression.

"What happened?" he asked, straightening up as well as he could.

"Talia's protégé begged for your life," the assassin replied, his accent the kind of British that only awful people have. "Something about not wanting you to die until he remembered who you are, or some shit like that."

A bolt of pain shot down Roy's spine.

"I thought Jason was safe? I thought I got him and the others out?"

The assassin laughed, harsh and cruel. "Your girl, Jade, came back since she's not as much of a weasel as you. The others came with, caused enough of a distraction that Talia was able to dispatch your buddy before he could finish you off. Damn shame, in my opinion. Coulda saved us all a lot of dicking around."

The stone Roy's back was pressed against was cold, damp, and slimy, the air wasn't much better, and it was all settling into his chest and muscles, making them achy and sore. The inability to lower his arms below about shoulder-height didn't help, either.

"Great, that's so helpful."

"Not the word I'd use, Ginger."

Roy tried to feel something, but all he could feel was tired. Why bother trying to save people who didn't want to be saved?

"When you all do decide to kill me, you'd better actually do it."

 **A/N: The author's notes this week are just me screaming.  
\- And a bit about fencing: "three," "four," and "five" are the main motions in sabre fencing. Depending on whether you're striking or blocking, they describe both the strike and the appropriate way to block that strike. I don't know what they did with "one" and "two." Those may belong to a different discipline of fencing. I don't know, I've only had one lesson.  
Anyway, thanks again for hanging in there while I had a series of nervous breakdowns and didn't post any updates for several months! I have a gift for you all!**


	12. End of the Line

**A/N: As a reward for your patience, dear readers, today's update in a two-for-one special! I love you guys a lot, have two chapters in one day!**

 **TW for suicide-baiting.**

Hot tears burn the most in cold darkness. Koriand'r was finding this to be true over and over again.

There had been a time when she thought she had no more tears to cry, years ago when she was a slave. And maybe it was partially true: she'd had no more tears to cry as a slave. Free, it was as though a fresh spring of tears had begun to flow in her. There were so many more ways than one for a heart to break.

A baby. That's what it had all been about. A baby that almost was, and then was not. It was Dick's, of course. He had pushed her away, but under the spell of one of Raven's brothers, they hadn't been able to help themselves, and that was all it had taken. She'd thought about telling him, but the timing was never right – she wasn't desperate, or afraid to raise a child by herself, and didn't want Dick thinking any differently. But she was a warrior still, and that was her undoing as much as her salvation. On the Blackest Night, she won the battle, but lost the pregnancy. So she ran, and forgot, trying to protect herself from the clutches of despair.

But now she remembered everything.

And alone, in the cold, and the dark, the spring within her flowed like never before.

* * *

Alone, in the cold, and the dark, thoughts clicked into place. There were plenty of things Roy was able to do. Telling the future wasn't one of them.

So why, he wondered, did he have a dream predicting the arrival of Five and his siblings at Ollie's house, and warning him to run? Why could he still feel Joey's hand on his shoulder, real as anything?

Roy banged his head against the wall. "Fuck."

"I don't know what you expected," Jade's voice said. "I'm still mad at you."

Roy looked up. The assassin guarding him had been replaced by Jade.

"Wasn't directed at you, but I'm not surprised."

Jade crossed her arms. "What were you thinking? I don't need your help."

"What are you even doing here, Jade? With the League? This isn't like you."

Jade slammed the bars of Roy's cell with her palm. "I'm getting my daughter back! What the hell do you think?"

Roy felt himself recoil at the thought. "You can't be serious."

"This is my only chance!" It may have been the light, but it looked like Jade's eyes were starting to glisten. "I need _closure_ , goddammit! I can't give up, not if there's any possibility of getting her back, and, as a mother herself, Talia has been more than sympathetic."

Roy thought of Jason, with his strange eyes, his anger, his cold hands, and all the fear he hid, even when he thought nobody was looking. He was almost unrecognizable as the sweet kid he'd been before he died.

"You don't want her back like this," he said. "Please, believe me."

"Anything's better than nothing," Jade replied, voice almost too quiet to hear. "Believe _me_."

* * *

"You understand," the woman – Talia – said, "that when my father finds out about your friends, he will almost certainly slaughter them, yes?"

He nervously tapped his fingers against the handles of his crutches. "Yes, but _I_ can't justify hurting them. They haven't done anything to me, as far as I remember."

"The past is not what you should be concerned with. Right now, the future is uncertain, and it is the future we should be looking toward. You saw what the people who absorbed the Convergence became. You and I both have to make sure the same doesn't happen to Father."

His brows wrinkled in confusion. "How are we supposed to do that?"

"Find the light within you, trust it, and embrace it, pushing away the darkness, no matter how safe or how strong the darkness feels. Embrace the light, forsake the dark."

* * *

"So, what happens now?" Roy asked.

"I assume Ra's al Ghul will have you and Koriand'r executed the second he finds out you're here," Jade replied with a shrug.

Roy shot to his feet as though lightning had just struck beside him, his chains jerking him violently backward as soon as he did.

"Kori's here?"

His heart raced in his chest. Was she in chains like he was? The Kori he knew would rather die than ever be a prisoner. Jason used to understand that.

"Yeah, she's here, dumbass. Did you think the League would let her go after all the shit you two pulled?"

He sagged against the wall, feeling beyond drained. He'd tried so hard to free the people he loved. Had his sacrifice been for nothing?

"She didn't even do anything," he said weakly.

"It sure didn't look that way." Jade crossed her arms. "I don't need saving, Roy. You three should've left when you had the chance. I make my own decisions, whether you like it or not."

"Jade, you –" Roy started.

"I don't understand?" Jade snapped. "Is that really what you were about to say to me? 'You don't understand! I'm just trying to protect you! Blah blah blah!' I am sick of that! Have you considered that I'm an adult, too? That I've been doing what I do just as long as you've been doing what you do? That I've seen some of the most insane shit this world has to offer and still survived? I _hate_ it when you talk to me like I'm and idiot because you used to be one of the golden boys: Green Arrow's sidekick, Teen Titan, Justice League member of the month, and whatever else, while I was on the opposite side. There's a reason I'm still alive, asshole, and its because _I know what I'm goddamn doing!"_

Roy looked at the floor. "You're right. You're right and I have been an ass, but please, at least believe me when I say that a Lazarus Pit isn't the right way to get our daughter back."

Jade lowered her eyes. "I can't. You know I can't. Even the tiniest scrap of something is better than nothing."

Roy nodded sadly. He understood too well how she was feeling.

"Can I make one last request?" he asked.

* * *

In theory, Kori could've broken out any time she wanted to. Iron bars, stone walls, cold chains, armed guards, what were they to her? Nothing. The only chains that held her were those of regret, of feeling that, on some level, she hadn't done enough yet. She'd pushed away the people she loved, ran straight toward trouble, and now was being punished for it. And what was punishment but incentive to be better next time?

There was the soft tapping of footsteps on the stone, accompanied by a slight clinking sound, metal on metal. Two figures emerged from the gloom, first Roy, then Jade. Roy crouched down outside Kori's cell, while the assassin folded her arms and leaned against the wall, staring at the opposite wall.

"Don't get all sappy," she said.

Roy pressed a hand against the bars, and Kori saw that the clinking sounds had come from the chains that wrapped his arms, binding his wrists together.

"Hi," he said softly, voice on the verge of cracking.

"Hello," Kori replied. "How are you?"

"I've been better." Roy smiled sadly. "You?"

"About the same," Kori replied, matching his expression.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"We are both grownups, let's not get into an apology battle. Are you okay?"

"I'm only panicking a little."

Kori twisted uncomfortably in her chains. "I know how you feel."

Roy briefly glanced over his shoulder at Jade, then back at Kori, lowering his voice. "Have I ever taught you _diné bizaad_?"

"I think so," Kori replied, matching his tone. "We've been friends for a long time, I can't imagine you wouldn't have."

"Well, we're speaking it right now, so I'd say I definitely have."

"Hey," Jade interjected in English, "I know what you're doing."

Roy froze.

"So be glad it's me guarding you and not somebody who cares. And give whatever escape plan you're coming up with a cool name, at least," she finished.

Roy seemed to relax, silently thanking Jade for the small gesture of kindness before continuing, in diné bizaad, "We do need to make a plan."

Kori smiled. "What do you have in mind?"

* * *

Talia al Ghul was probably the only person in the room who felt no fear or even the mildest hint of awe when Ra's al Ghul finally made his grand entrance into the stronghold. Even veteran assassins were unable to fully compose themselves as their immortal master, ordinary in stature, made giant by his bearing, swept into the room like a bank of fog settling over a fishing village. Wide eyes and bated breath, white knuckles and rigid spines all followed as he silently approached his daughter, looking at none of them yet seeming to judge them all.

"Is everything in place?" he asked, not bothering to give his daughter a proper greeting and not needing to. Ra's al Ghul was not a man to waste words, especially when there was business to attend to.

Talia nodded once. "Yes, Father. But I can't say this is a good idea. I have studied the effect that absorption of a Convergence has on a person, and I must say, madness does not become you."

Ra's scoffed at his daughter's council. "Unlike those untitled seven who came before me, I do not intend to fracture the powers wantonly. I will keep them whole, and my League will once again become unchallenged, untouchable as it once was. I am a much wiser man than seven idiots whose names were forgotten as easily as their deeds, and you would do well to remember that, daughter, if you wish to remain at my side."

Though her eyes narrowed, Talia bowed her head all the same.

"Yes, Baba," she muttered. She turned away and grabbed Jason's shoulder, feeling only slight relief once her nails were digging into the boy's shoulder through his sweatshirt.

"Come, Father," she said, leading Jason from the room without even the slightest glance backward. "The Pit awaits."

"You would bring the detective's reject with you?" her father asked. If Talia hadn't known better, she would have sworn she heard a note of amusement in his tone.

"He seems a more suitable heir than Damian, and if he is to play that role, then it's for the better that he learns as much as he can." She was almost amazed by how easy it was to lie and believe the lie. It always was when there was an element of plausibility mixed into the nonsense.

"Hm."

Jason, whether from fear or from understanding on some level how much better off he would be if Ra's didn't know that he was the key that could defuse the bomb that the Convergence created, stayed perfectly silent, stared straight ahead, and allowed Talia to lead him toward whatever awaited them at the bottom of the stronghold.

* * *

The green of the Pit was mesmerizing. It seemed to call to him, daring him to disturb its surface, to discover what it felt like against his skin.

Talia placed a hand on his arm, a silent warning he heard loud and clear: Don't.

"When will it be time?" the old man asked.

"Any moment now," she said. "Magic is not an exact science."

"Pah! I expected more from you, Talia."

"My apologies, Father."

There was no emotion in her voice, except maybe annoyance. She was just as proud as her father, just as regal. She didn't seem to fear him the way the others did.

He wondered about his own father, suddenly more frustrated than ever at his memory loss. The old man had called him "The Detective's Reject," and Talia had mentioned him replacing someone named Damian.

Damian.

" _Hermanito_."

The memory was brief, like a whisper, but he knew, deep down, that he had a brother somewhere.

The Pit began to bubble. He watched in fascination as the bubbles darkened, beginning to carry inky blackness to the surface. When they burst, swirls of stars rippled outward with the blackness until the whole pool looked like the night sky. Then, the bubbling stopped, leaving all in attendance staring in awe for a moment at the perfect stillness laid out below them, like a mirror held up to the Universe.

Then Talia looked at her watch.

"One hour," she said.

"I would prefer not to wait," her father replied, walking down the sloping circle of rock surrounding the Pit. The lowest point of the circle, directly opposite the entrance to the cavern, was no more than a foot above the surface of the pool.

The old man removed his green and gold mantle, leaving his chest bare, then stepped down into the swirling galaxy contained within the pool. A set of steps must have been hidden beneath the surface, from the way he descended. He took one step at a time, reverent, until he was completely submerged.

Talia watched with an intensity that couldn't be categorized as disapproving or hopeful. She simply watched.

When the old man emerged from the water, the irises of his eyes were an intense, inhuman gold. And he was staring directly at Talia and her chosen heir.

"You," the old man said, raising his hand and pointing at his so-called heir with a look that clearly communicated he would not remain the heir for long, would not remain _at all_ for long.

Talia closed her eyes and sighed.

* * *

Pathetic little boy, trying to be an assassin without killing. Ra's felt no sympathy for Jason Todd as he had the boy chained to one of the stone columns filling the room. The boy would watch as his friends were sacrificed to the beings on the other side of the Void, and then Ra's would eat his heart.

It seemed only fitting. There would be no tolerance for those who defied him. Not in the slightest.

* * *

 _I don't wanna die,_ Roy realized. _At least, not like this. I never even got to tell Donna I was sorry._

But he walked calmly anyway. Because this time, he had a plan to save his life, not end it. And there was almost a 1% chance it might work.

* * *

 _I am not going to die_ , Kori resolved. _Not like this, and not today._

She walked proudly despite the guards surrounding her, because she had a plan. A plan to save everyone. And it _had_ to work.

* * *

 _They're going to die_ , Talia thought, mind racing despite her calm outward appearance. _And the Essence will never forgive me._

She'd had a plan. A plan to save the world. And one misstep had ruined everything.

* * *

Tears stung at the corners of his eyes, threatening to fall at any second. Tears of anger and frustration. He didn't understand any of it.

He had friends and a little brother. Somehow, he'd hurt his wrist and ankle. He knew how to swordfight. He liked fantasy.

 _I want to remember_. _Please, let me remember what all this is about. I want to remember. I want to remember. Iwanttoremember._

* * *

 _Tinkatinkatinkatink._

A vessel on one of the shelves behind Siaru started to shake. That was unusual.

"Ducra?" the boy called softly. "Essence?"

* * *

It felt insulting to Ra's that neither of his victims looked afraid. He _wanted_ them to be afraid. He wanted to smell their fear as the life drained from their bodies.

They both stared at him, faces strangely blank. They were _mocking_ him!

"Who's first?" he asked with a snarl.

* * *

Roy stepped forward, feeling strangely serene as he stared mortality in the face.

"Any final words?" Ra's al Ghul sneered, a sword made of thought materializing in his hand.

Roy smiled as he closed his eyes. "What do stars do best?"

* * *

The star within Kori burst forth, not this time as starbolts, but as a white-hot nimbus that poured from every part of her and filled the cavern with blinding light.

What stars do best is, of course, glow.

She'd learned that in a movie.

* * *

Talia was blinded in an instant, but she knew how to move when blind, and move she did.

She picked the locks keeping Jason in chains as easily as if she could see, and whispered, "It's okay."

It felt strange to be reassuring like that. She convinced herself it was only so Jason would know who was freeing him. It did lower the chance of getting punched.

* * *

The vessel on the shelf exploded.

If Ducra hadn't been a ghost, she would've exhaled sharply at that point.

"Well, shit."

* * *

Jason remembered everything. And he immediately wished he couldn't. There was too much darkness clawing at his mind, too much unaddressed trauma.

Someone was laughing a horrible, humorless laugh that wouldn't stop.

"Talia," he gasped. "I can't stop him. I'm sorry."

"Who told you you'd be doing it alone?"

* * *

When his sight returned, Ra's almost laughed. The three mortals and his daughter were staring him down, poised to attack. Talia had a bronze sword drawn, the one thing that could hurt him - if she could get close to him. The one called Arsenal had a gun protruding from his metal arm, while the one called Starfire brandished a sphere of white light in either hand; useless, except to maybe slow him down temporarily. Jason Todd had nothing, not even his crutches, but still limped toward him like a street dog too stupid to know when it had lost a fight.

"What do you expect to do?" he declared, laughing at the utter idiocy of them all. "Daughter, your 'heir' doesn't even have a weapon."

Talia narrowed her eyes in defiance. "What do you mean, Baba? He has the greatest weapon of all: knowledge."

Then, she grabbed the boy by the collar and shoved him into the Pit.

* * *

When Jason hit the water, it didn't feel _wet,_ exactly. It felt the way a little kid imagines a cloud would feel: soft and inviting, wrapping itself around him like a warm embrace, but at the same time, suffocating and too warm. He hated it.

He couldn't tell which direction was which, it was all a void of stars, like being trapped in space, he couldn't breathe, just suspended forever in the void. He tried to inhale, but the void was choking him. Then, in the darkness, he saw a woman, squat and grey and tired, reluctantly holding something out toward him. A ring, shaped like a barbed hook. He took it and swallowed it, and then he knew where the surface was.

* * *

One hand appeared above the surface, grasping the stone, then the other, and Jason pulled himself to the surface. He climbed out of the pool, water streaming from his hair and clothes. Talia worried for a moment that it hadn't worked, but then she noticed his eyes. The irises were completely grey.

"Remember, Jason," she said, "embrace the light."

He tilted his head to the side, regarding her like a cat in the dark.

"Why?"

Talia inhaled sharply. _You knew full well that this could happen._

"What do you mean?"

Jason straightened, then took a few steps toward Ra's before turning back to her.

"I mean," he said, "why should I embrace the light? I see what the darkness is now: power. I now have the power to _fix_ things, Talia!" He was smiling like a little boy. "I can stop criminals without ever having to kill them! I can just make them despair until they can hardly even get out of bed in the morning! I can make them remember every terrible thing they've ever done, and truly _feel_ remorse for once! I can really do what Batman never could: stop criminals for good without killing! I'll be amazing!"

Ra's was watching the exchange with an amusement that was almost gleeful.

"Man, shut up."

Roy Harper, the mouthy ginger, took a few steps toward Jason, staring him down with something akin to annoyance.

"When are you going to get the hell over yourself?" he asked.

Jason looked confused.

"What are you talking about?" he replied, though the question was clearly rhetorical.

"'Wahh, poor me, every other week I turn into a psycho because Batman doesn't love meeeeee!' How are you not tired at this point?"

Jason looked a little shaken.

"Come on," Roy continued, extending a hand to his friend, "let it go. Break the cycle, Jaybird. Be your own person."

Cautiously, Jason took the hand extended to him. Then he twisted it hard and pulled the other man toward him.

"That's funny, coming from you," he retorted. "You really are pathetic, Roy, you know that? Crying about your dead daughter and your dead best friend and how nobody loves you anymore because you were a dick to them and pushed them all away." Roy sank to his knees, Jason still gripping his arm like a vice. "What are you even doing with your life besides trying to end it? If you wanna end things so bad, why haven't you done it yourself? Do you get off on making everyone around you miserable, or are you really just too depressed to _kill yourself?_ Or, maybe, are you afraid you'll fuck that up just like everything else you do?"

Roy's shoulders were shaking when Jason dropped his hand.

Jason straightened, looking Talia in the eye with a manic grin on his face.

"Damn, I'm good at this. Does anyone else want to try, or can I go now?"

Koriand'r soared out of Talia's blind spot right for Jason, grabbing him by the sweatshirt and dragging him along the floor until he slammed into the cavern wall, struggling against her strong grip to no avail.

"What, exactly," she asked, "was it that you hoped to accomplish with that? We are not your enemies, Jason. I think it would be best if you didn't treat us like we are."

Jason sneered. "Then stay out of my way. You don't even know me. You're just my older brother's friends. We're not some team or whatever you think this is. Why don't you crawl back to Dick and tell him about your dead baby in yet another sad attempt to get him to stay?"

The princess' shoulders went rigid. Talia suddenly had a plan. She moved closer to the two of them.

"How did you know about that?" Kori asked, the emotion in her voice hard to define.

Jason laughed, a single, harsh bark without much humor in it at all. "Haven't you been paying attention? You're not the only one with shiny, new powers! And I think mine are cooler than 'become a walking flash grenade.'"

"Indigo," Talia said, causing Jason and Koriand'r both to turn toward her, "for compassion. Your aura has quite a few prominent colors, Jason; green for willpower, yellow for fear, violet for love. But the strongest color I've seen is indigo. Your compassion is what makes you who you are. Look at what you're doing. Where is the compassion in your actions? That void can give you all the powers it has to offer, but if you're no longer yourself once you've accepted them, will you still be satisfied?"

Jason redoubled his efforts to free himself from his friend's grip, again to no avail.

"Jason!" Talia commanded, beginning to grow increasingly annoyed. "Look at me!"

Surprisingly, he obeyed, grey eyes wild as he fixed them on her.

"Now answer me. Will you be satisfied with losing yourself and becoming just like the people I trained you to fight at the All-Caste? Are all not equal, Jason?"

Jason closed his eyes.

"No," he said. "I'm tired of losing myself."

"Then let it go." Then, she addressed Koriand'r, "You can let him go."

The princess released her grip on Jason, and he slid to the floor, then straightened and walked toward Ra's.

"I don't know what you expect to do, boy," Ra's addressed him. "You and I have already accepted the power of the Convergence. Unless you would like me to kill you now, you'd best accustom yourself to this for the next thousand years!"

"I expect," Jason replied, "to let it go."

Then, he grabbed Ra's shoulder with one hand and slammed the heel of his hand into the older man's chest with the other. A shockwave seemed to ripple through the cavern, then both men doubled over, vomiting a black liquid that crawled back into the Pit of its own accord.

When they both stopped being sick and straightened back up, Ra's frowned.

"What –" he started to say, but he was cut off by a blow to the back of the head. He collapsed, and behind him stood Roy, looking relieved.

* * *

The sunlight reflecting off the water burned, yet also felt good. Not only did it help after getting sucker-punched by magical depression, it was also something Roy hadn't expected to see again. It was a new day, and it was one he was ready to see.

After escaping the League stronghold with Talia's blessing, they had retrieved Jason's boat from Maine and were headed back to Kori's boat/house/whatever.

"I should probably start apologizing now," Jason said.

He seemed different. It wasn't just the way he carried himself, his wrist and ankle having healed from exposure to the Pit. It wasn't that his eyes were, for the first time in probably almost five years, free of green, gray, or any other color that wasn't brown with a splash of blue. He was just… different.

"There's a lot of shit I did, and I swear I'm sorry for all of it."

Kori put a hand on his shoulder.

"We know," she interrupted. "Who hasn't been possessed or… whatever at some point or other? If I did not know better, I would say you're starting to act like a superhero again."

Kori seemed different, too. It wasn't just the superpower upgrade, or the return of her memories. The way she carried herself now made her "old" self seem insecure, and considering how insecurity had never really been one of Kori's character traits, she now seemed invincible.

Jason laughed.

"What will you do now?"

Kori sighed. "I think it's time I found Dick and the two of us had a long discussion. He deserves the truth."

Roy nodded. He still wasn't sure he was ready to forgive Dick, but he also wasn't sure Dick was unforgiveable.

"What will you do?" Kori asked him.

Roy looked down at the knuckles of his prosthetic hand. It might not be anything, and he didn't have much to go on at all, but –

"I've been thinking," he said, almost before he realized the words were leaving his mouth. "Maybe it's wishful thinking, but I think, somehow, Joey might still be around. Whether as a ghost, or some kind of revenant/zombie/whatever-Jason-was, I don't know. But if he is out there somewhere, I have to find him."

Kori kissed him on the cheek.

"That's very noble. Jason, what will you do?"

Jason looked lost.

"I'm… not really sure," he said. "I'm so tired of being angry. I don't want to be defined by Batman anymore. But I don't know how not to be."

Kori nodded, then ruffled his hair.

"I'm sure you'll figure it out."

After a few moments of thinking, a smile crept across Jason's face.

"Hey, Roy, think you could use a detective on your quest for your undead missing person?"

"Sure," Roy answered, "you know any?"

* * *

Kori gave the boys parting kisses one last time, then, everything packed into a duffel bag slung over her shoulder, flew away toward Gotham.

She felt free. Not just from physical chains and cages. Not just from magically amplified despair. Not just because of the power boost given to her by all the Suns of a new Universe coming into its own. She felt free to be on her own, because now it was her choice. And she liked the possibilities she saw.

* * *

"So," Jason asked, "where should we start?"

He was a little more than a little excited to be going on an adventure outside of Gotham on purpose. He almost didn't care what he'd be doing. He hadn't felt this good since… before he died, he realized. Death had been right; it was time to start living.

"We have to go to Star City first," Roy said. "I kinda… ran out on my family, and I need to apologize."

Jason nodded. "Fair enough! We can do that!"

"Careful, Mr. I-Don't-Do-Teams, you almost sound excited."

Despite his tone, Roy was smiling.

"Maybe I almost am."

* * *

"Is it over, Mother?" The Essence asked.

"Yes," a voice that was assuredly not Ducra's replied. "It's over."

Talia al Ghul stepped into the light.

"I have to ask, though, was it necessary to take Jason's memories?" she continued. "He ultimately defeated my father with his memories returned to him."

The Essence crossed her arms. "If you had brought the child like we asked, maybe we would not have taken that precaution."

Talia huffed. "You never would've been able to prepare the child in time. It has _barely_ been a year. Jason was the best option you had."

"So now what will you do, Talia?"

"Train her like any other," Talia replied as though that were the most obvious answer in the world.

"And her parents?"

"Neither suspect. Which, unfortunately, makes returning her unlikely."

"I suppose the next Shiva will not train herself."

The Essence despised Lady Shiva, but she tried not to let it show.

"I suppose."

"Pray, Talia, that we never need each other again."

Talia gave her an ironic smile as she turned to leave.

"I already do, Essence."

 **A/N: The first major arc is DONE, and with it, my attempts to pull from the comics directly. Well, almost. The first chapter of the next arc and a couple concepts pull from Red Hood/Arsenal, but it's mostly just yours truly doing whatever the hell she wants from here on out.  
\- "So, dead babies, huh? Does this mean no Mar'i?" Not at all! In fact, I plan to fully resolve Kori's arc in one of the installments of a miniseries about how the world changes after the Convergence. There's too much story potential there to ignore.  
\- Hey, DC, guess what? Women have complex emotions, too. Even the "villainous" ones.  
\- Diné bizaad is the Navajo way to say "the Navajo language" and it's the only phrase I manage to remember consistently. Which I guess is fine, since I have no practical use for knowing said language. But I'm still salty.  
\- I swear I'm done with the Stardust references now. At least, probably.  
\- I'm just gonna warn you guys right now, the mystery is slow-burn as hell. I have it planned out, but it's not getting solved until Major Arc 3. Though, you're welcome to ask me about it here or on the blog, and I'd be happy to discuss it with you! I'm trying not to make it too convoluted, but it's just a whole thing.  
And that's all for Major Arc 1! Short stories, playlists, art, and Major Arc 2 are all ahead! Unless I die unexpectedly! That'd suck. Comments are, as always, cherished forever.**


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